Multi-channel provisioning of public services - Department of ...

e completed through supplying information for undefined/ambiguous parts at run-time); and
flexibility by change (run-time modification of process model so that one or more executing instances
are migrated to the new model).
4 FLEXIBILITY IN PROCESS AWARE INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
In this section we will look at approaches to achieving flexibility for process-oriented service
provisioning using process aware information systems.
4.1 Why process flexibility
Gortmaker et al. (2004) provides an extensive overview of benefits of cross-agency automation of
services, both from organisational, managerial, strategic, technical and operational point of view. In
Norway, there are ambitions for examining how legal protection can be catered for satisfactorily in
relation to fully or partially automated decision-making solutions (FAD, 2009). Important aspects
involve transparency, traceability, and the sharing of data between supervisory authorities. From a
single agency point of view, process-orientation provides support and documentation of activities for
monitoring and reporting. Additionally, the process-oriented approach provides relative increased
business agility and flexibility of service offerings compared to what achieved through previously
available approaches.
4.2 Flexibility provided by PAIS
It is common to differentiate between imperative and declarative process modelling. While imperative
process modelling is explicit about both what and how any action should be completed, declarative
process modelling focuses only on what should be done. Declarative (constraint-based) process
modelling has limited potential for automation, and is limited to describing tasks and interactions of
tasks. One example using declarative process models for public services is that of the person-centric
flows, providing updated tasks lists for health workers (Unger et al., 2010).
The support for constraints and flexibility in process-oriented environments depends on how the
activities are bound to the human and system actors within the models. Declarative P2P processes can
be remodelled with ease provided that the actors with the required competencies are available. P2A
and A2A processes are however, bound to the flexibility of the information infrastructure or
components supporting the PAIS, thus requiring configuration of interfaces of any new application
resource.
Figure 1 The process life cycle
Figure 1 shows the traditional life-cycle model for process development, going from design,
modelling, execution of processes, and monitoring. The design phase requires transforming business
goals to services and process models, adding modularity, and defining interfaces. The anticipated
flexibility of the model is decided in the design phase, and modelled in the modelling phase. When
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