Business workflows and screen flows

We might wonder how screen flows differ from real business workflows. In short, screen flows are completed by a single user and have a short lifetime. Business workflows are long-running and define handovers between multiple users. They are done by an underlying workflow engine. This engine manages and assigns the tasks, handles the transaction, and takes care of the persistence of process data. In most IT landscapes screen flows and business workflows are used together. No one of these technologies replaces the other, but both technologies can complement each other.

Human-centric business workflows rely heavily on human interactions that consist of human tasks. They require a user interface (UI) that enables human beings to process such human tasks. Portals can provide such UIs by portlets that encapsulate the logic of specific tasks. Single human tasks cannot always be easily mapped to a single UI artifact, but require a well-defined sequence of UI artifacts. Therefore, screen flows represent the perfect instrument for mapping human tasks to such sequences. This statement is true even if the single task might be short-running and might normally be processed by one single user, which implies that any further separation is not reasonable.

Summary: mapping human tasks to screen flows and combining real business workflows and screen flows can have synergy benefits. In this context, long-running business processes that are run by a business workflow engine can trigger screen flows that are run by portal for dedicated human tasks. After the screen flow completes, the portal gives the control back to the business workflow engine. Data can be exchanged between the business workflow engine and the screen flow on the portal. If a user suspends a screen flow, the portal can hand over the processed data over to the business workflow to have it persisted.

Parent IBM UX Screen Flow Manager