ITANA Minutes, August 6, 2009

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ATTENDING

Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin-Madison (chair)
Keith Hazelton, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Paul Hobson, Cardiff University
Piet Niederhausen, Georgetown University
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Todd Piket, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
Mark Poepping, Carnegie-Mellon University
David Walker, University of California Davis
Ann West, Internet2

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ACTION ITEMS

(AI) Keith Hazelton will develop a problem statement concerning the problem of the uncoordinated development of simultaneous/parallel workflow systems at Wisconsin.

(AI) Piet Niederhausen volunteered to draft a strawman outlining the necessary steps for moving toward an enterprise workflow.

(AI) Jim Phelps will add an enterprise workflow logical flow diagram to the wiki.

(AI) Jim Phelps will draft a statement of work for enterprise workflow, based on today's conversation.

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ENTERPRISE WORKFLOW

The enterprise workflow section of the wiki continues to grow. There are now problem statements from Georgetown, UC Irvine, the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin.https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Enterprise+Workflow

The audience for the workflow discussion is information architects. While there may be a need to involve some business units (the director of HR, for example), that would come later, after the problems are defined and implementation guidelines determined.

In terms of scope, the question is whether the discussion will include those who are new to workflow solutions, or to those who are looking to move up to a fully integrated workflow system. Scoping actually involves a range of workflow solutions, from simple solutions (like moving documents around) to fully integrated solutions that aggregate information from a variety of applications.

Keith discussed a situation at Wisconsin, where there are several simultaneous, parallel efforts that are not centrally coordinated. Developers are being asked to develop these one-off workflow solutions. The question is how to integrate these solutions (if possible) as a way to move toward an enterprise workflow solution. (AI) Keith will write up a problem statement concerning this situation.

It was suggested that a strawman be developed, demonstrating the progression from a campus with no work flow system to a campus interested in an enterprise system. The strawman would include the necessary steps for developing a workflow system, as well as a maturity model outlining the types of things that need to be in place (an identity management system, role definition, integration of systems, etc.). (AI) Piet volunteered to draft the strawman.

The NMI-edit directory roadmap might provide a useful example and/or template for the strawman and for a maturity model.http://www.nmi-edit.org/roadmap/dir-roadmap_200510/index-set.html

The enterprise workflow model should also take into account the problem statements being added to the wiki, as well as other tasks needing to be accomplished (for example, aggregating tasks into a portal, or messaging between systems).

(AI) Jim made notes about a logical flow on his whiteboard; he will add that to the wiki.

The group also reviewed tasks outlined from previous calls and updated their status:

1) Provide overviews of workflow systems included with products like the Sun access management system. - This will not be done immediately - perhaps in phase two or three.

2) Develop applicable definitions (what do we mean by workflow?) - this has been started on wiki and Jim will continue to update.

3) Compile a survey of tools - this will be done later

4) Adapt information from well-known workflow sites to higher education (the workflow management coalition site is www.wfmc.org - someone who is a member of wfmc.org needs to take this on.

(AI) Jim will draft a statement of work for enterprise workflow, based on today's conversations.

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NEXT CALL

Thursday, August 20, 2009, 2 p.m. (EDT) / 1 p.m. (CDT) / 11 a.m. (PDT)

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