Patent ID: 6988062

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for generating a workflow metamodel, wherein the metamodel describes a class of workflow models and includes a number of finite automata stored on a computer readable storage medium, the method comprising: a) extracting information from example workflow models, including: generating nodes and edges for the example workflow models, wherein such nodes have respective types, the type of such a node showing occurrence of data, an activity or a decision, and wherein such an edge connects two of the nodes and shows a sequence of occurrence of the data, activities or decisions of the two connected nodes; generating node strings for the respective ones of the example workflow models, wherein the node strings have characters and the characters of such a node string show occurence of respective ones of the nodes; generating edge strings for the respective nodes of the respective example workflow models, wherein the edge strings have characters and the characters of such an edge string show occurence of edges connected to the edge string's respective one of the nodes; and b) generating a workflow metamodel for a class of such example workflow models, wherein the generating is responsive to the information extracted in a) and the class includes all the example workflow models, and wherein the generating of the workflow metamodel includes: generating finite automata; and storing the finite automata on a computer readable storage medium, wherein the finite automata correspond to respective ones of the strings and the generating of such a finite automaton is in response to its corresponding string.