# Business Process Configuration according to Data Dependency Specification
## 6 Conclusions and Future Work  
Declarative languages have been focused on the order of activities, and not on how the data values and dependencies can affect the optimal execution of a process. In this paper, we apply configuration problems ideas to the construction of an imperative model according to the declarative description of the data relation. Our proposal shields the business experts from unnecessary details,  
Figure 14: Execution Time of Algorithm 1 and Algorithm 2.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Test** & **Num. of Activities** & **Num. of \(\mathbb{PDI}\)** & **Num. of Constraints** \\ \hline Test 1–10 & 10 & [5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15] & [10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30] \\ Test 11–20 & 100 & [5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15] & [10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30] \\ Test 21–30 & 1000 & [10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25] & [20; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30] \\ Test 31–40 & 5000 & [10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25] & [20; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30] \\ Test 41–50 & 10,000 & [10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25] & [20; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30] \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 3: Summary of the test cases used for evaluation.  
and to provide assistance when experts know what they want (the BP requirements by means of data dependencies) but do not know how to attain what they want (establish the order of the activities), Conf-BP Framework is proposed. Conf-BP establishes a methodology to transform a declarative model into an imperative representation using BPMN. Business experts only have to specify the BP requirements, leaving the configuration of the activities in the imperative model to the intelligent system, which uses the Constraint Programming paradigm and a set of proposed definitions and algorithms. This automatic methodology obtains an imperative model described by BPMN where the optimal model related to execution time is obtained. In addition, the framework is applied to an example: the process of organising a trip. Future work into this area involves increasing the capabilities of Conf-BP by including loops within the model, where there exists a cyclic relation between the data.  
Conceptualization and Methodology, L.P. and M.T.G.-L.; Development, L.P.; Validation, M.T.G.-L. and A.J.V.-V.; Writing-Original Draft, L.P.; Writing--Review & Editing, M.T.G.-L., A.J.V.-V., and R.M.G.  
This work has been partially funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain (TIN2015-63502-C3-2-R) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF/FEDER).  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.  
The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:  
\begin{tabular}{l l} ADI & Activities Data Input \\ ADO & Activities Data Output \\ BP & Business Process \\ BPEL & Business Process Execution Language \\ BPM & Business Process Management \\ BPMN & Business Process Model and Notation \\ BPMS & Business Process Management System \\ Conf-BP & Configuration of Activities in Business Processes \\ Conf-BP & Conf-BP Declarative Specification \\ Conf-BP & Conf-BP Imperative Modelling Specification \\ COP & Constraint Optimization Problem \\ CSP & Constraint Satisfaction Problem \\ OBJ\_FUNC & Objective Function \\ PDI & Process Data Input \\ PDO & Process Data Output \\ \end{tabular}