Workflow Libraries (DB vs Code)

[Thomas Guettler]

Hi,

I need to write some simple workflows with web interface.

For the web stuff I will use django, but I am not sure how
to do the workflow part.

Here are ideas:

Do it myself. I don't think it will be difficult, I did things like
this before. But they were not reusable.

Use spiff Workflow library http://code.google.com/p/spiff-workflow/

Use goflow for django (port of OpenFlow of Zope). It does not look like a active project.

Has anyone worked with spiff, goflow or other workflow software? What do you like and
dislike?

Somehow I like it the way goflow does it: The process definitions are stored
in the database. But on the other hand I prefer to have things like this in
a SVN-Repository.

Creating the workflow definitions will be done by python programmers. I don't need
a GUI to build them.

There are many languages to define processes (BPML, XPDL, BPEL or YAWL). But I prefer python.

Feedback welcome,

Thomas

 

[Thomas Guettler]

Did you consider using OpenERP? It comes with a web-frontend
(TG1.0.8-based), but also offers a XMLRPC-server to connect to, so using it
from within django shouldn't be any difficult.

Workflow-definitions are stored in the DB, and can be generated visually,
not sure if they have to though.

Thank you for this hint. OpenERP seems well done.

But the licence is GPL and the dependency is too big. But I will have a look
at how they did it.

Thomas