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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.
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