The Process OSID is an auxiliary service that manage Processes and mapping of external OSID Ids to

States.

Objects may take part in multiple processes simulataneously, and while an object can only be in one state within a process, an object may have more than one state across processes. An externally mapped Id is restricted to one State per Process.

Process

A Process is a collection of States. States are mapped to a Process to form a finite state machine. The StateSequencingSession can be used to design the FSM by specifying sequential set of next valid States.

State

A State is a simple OsidObject that captures the name and description of a state. A State belongs to a single Process. A process for representing the lifecycle of Assets and another process for representing the lifecycle of Courses may each define a "draft" state. Two States need to be created to represent the draft state of a course in the course lifecycle process and the draft state of an asset in the asset lifecycle process.

Process Catalog

A Process is an OsidCatalog of States.

The standard catalog federating pattern was blindly applied which can create views of combined processes. What this means in practice is anyone's guess.

As an auxiliary orchestrated service, a Process represents not only a collection of States but also the implicit object type of the mapped Ids. For example, the "Publishing Asset" process manages Asset Ids where all Assets in the orchestrated repository are known and already in some initial State.

Workflow

The Workflow OSID defines a service to move Work through a series of Steps in a Process. The Process OSID is the flip side of the Workflow OSID where the Work is the external Id and the Step is the State. The Process OSID can be considered a view geared toward a state model where it is desirable to understand what is occurring from the object's point of view. The Resourcing OSID is the other service in this trinity defining the service from the worker's point of view.