Declare

Declare Models in CPN Tools

Michael — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 12:50:15 +0000

As we’ve already mentioned, Declare will cease to exist as we know it now, but continue living on inside CPN Tools, providing a much more user-friendly and interactive interface as well as ability to mix the declarative paradigm with more direct modeling using Petri nets, and a vastly improved data perspective.

Here is a demo of an early version of this integration.

You can read much more about this on Michael’s blog.

Merging Declare and CPN Tools

Michael — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:34:36 +0000

As you may or may not know, I’m maintaining both Declare and CPN Tools. I would like to make some improvements to Declare, and instead of struggling with the Declare Editor, which is a bit annoying to work with for many tasks, I decided to instead integrate Declare functionality into CPN Tools.

This means that Declare will gain features such as simpler modularity, timed simulation, very intuitive support for data, and simulation-based performance analysis of models. In addition, you can seamlessly mix declarative models with Petri net models and even colored Petri net models.

CPN Tools will gain the power obtained from supporting the declarative paradigm; this means that even in a CPN model, it becomes possible to use, e.g., succession or co-existence, which is quite difficult to do without declarative constructs. Here is an early screen-shot from the upcoming version of CPN Tools:

Declare on Windows 8

Michael — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:59:50 +0000

Good news everyone! Declare runs with no problems on Windows 8. At least on the Consumer Preview. This holds true for both the 32 bit version and the 64 bit version. See the original post and more pictures at http://westergaard.eu/2012/03/cpn-toolsdeclareprom-on-windows-8-cp/.

Data and Resources

Michael — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:23:20 +0000

In the next version of Declare, data and resources will have a much more prominent role. Currently, both are hidden away in other tabs and the relationship between the control-flow, data, and resource perspectives nearly invisible.

In the next version, data will be represented as ovals or circles (inspired by places from Petri nets) and resources as triangles. Flow of data will be visible explicitly in the model.

In the future, also resource requirements and more advanced data patterns will be visible in models and can be checked and enforced.

Declare Renaming

Michael — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:38:27 +0000

In some older papers, the Declare tool has been referred to as DECLARE and the language as ConDec. Starting from version 2.4 (due before the end of the year), the name changes to “Declare” (without quotes, of course), i.e., using normal lowercase. The reason is that Declare is not an abbreviation and all-uppercase words are typographically ugly.

We also start referring to the language of Declare as Declare (or the Declare language) instead of the old name ConDec. While Declare can support other languages, the default and main language is the language formerly known as ConDec. This simplifies the naming scheme, reduces confusion, and ties the brands together.

When we released Declare 2.2, it was released as Declare 2.2 with Modules. The surname is not really part of the name but useful for quickly getting an idea of what the main new feature of a version of Declare is. I cannot promise this will be the case for all future releases, but as a sneak preview, I can reveal that the next version is Declare 2.4 with Time. Starting from Declare 2.4, versions of Declare will have the version number in the title bar for easy reference.

Finally, the main tools comprising the main Declare package have been renamed. The renaming is as follows: Framework -> Server and Worklist -> Client. The reason is that the name Framework never made sense to me. The application is really just the server tool for the Declare workflow engine and is now named as such. The renaming of the client is to correspond with the name of the server and make it clear that it cannot work alone (but that the two applications can run on separate machines).

Declare 2.2.0 with Modules Released

Michael — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 09:10:53 +0000

We have just released Declare 2.2.0. Declare 2.2.0 should be compatible with old versions of Declare, and introduces modules. Get it now from the download page.

This is a further development of the now defunct YAWL support, which allows any workflow language to act as a component of Declare or to use Declare as a sub-module.

This version also introduce improvements for Declare’s support for data in models, and data is fully supported by the module concept.

We will upload a full demo as soon as possible, but for now, you can take a look at a quick run-thru (of an early version) on Michael’s blog or enjoy this preview:

Declare Demo

Michael — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:52:07 +0000

To celebrate the release of Declare 2.1, we have published an online demo showing off the features of Declare. The demo is available on the front page or below.

We will also give a demo of Declare at BPM 2011, so be sure to meet us there!

Declare 2.1.0 Released

Michael — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:34:29 +0000

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s release of Declare 2.0.9, we have now present Declare 2.1. This version is more or less the same as the 2.0.9 release with the added ability to switch of control from within Declare and connect to the Declare Monitor for monitoring of process health.

Of course, Declare 2.1 inherits these features form 2.0.9: This version is much faster, and can handle much larger models using the approach described in [1] and is compatible with the operational support service in ProM 6.1 described in [2]. This version is a testing release prior to the forthcoming final 2.1 release.

[1] M. Westergaard, Better Algorithms for Analyzing and Enacting Declarative Workflow Languages Using LTL, in span style=font-style: italicProc. of BPM/span, Springer-Verlag, 2011.
[Bibtex]

@incollection{improved_translation,
  Author = {M. Westergaard},
  Title = {{Better Algorithms for Analyzing and Enacting Declarative Workflow Languages Using LTL}},
  Year = {2011},
  Publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
  Series = {LNCS}, 
  Booktitle = {{Proc. of BPM}}, 
}

[2] M. Westergaard and F. Maggi, Modeling and Verification of a Protocol for Operational Support Using Coloured Petri Nets, in span style=font-style: italicApplications and Theory of Petri Nets/span, L. Kristensen and L. Petrucci, Ed., Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2011, vol. 6709, p. 169-188.
[Bibtex]

@incollection{osprotocol,
   author = {Westergaard, Michael and Maggi, Fabrizio},
   affiliation = {Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands},
   title = {Modeling and Verification of a Protocol for Operational Support Using Coloured Petri Nets},
   booktitle = {Applications and Theory of Petri Nets},
   series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
   editor = {Kristensen, Lars and Petrucci, Laure},
   publisher = {Springer Berlin / Heidelberg},
   isbn = {978-3-642-21833-0},
   keyword = {Computer Science},
   pages = {169-188},
   volume = {6709},
   doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-21834-7_10},
   note = {10.1007/978-3-642-21834-7_10},
   abstract = {In this paper, we describe the modeling and analysis of a protocol for operational support during workflow enactment. Operational support provides online replies to questions such as “is my execution valid?” and “how do I end the execution in the fastest/cheapest way?”, and may be invoked multiple times for each execution. Multiple applications (operational support providers) may be able to answer such questions, so a protocol supporting this should be able to handle multiple providers, maintain data between queries about the same execution, and discard information when it is no longer needed. We present a coloured Petri net model of a protocol satisfying our requirements. The model is used both to make our requirements clear by building a model-based prototype before implementation and to verify that the devised protocol is correct. We present techniques to make analysis of the large state-space of the model possible, including modeling techniques and an improved state representation for coloured Petri nets allowing explicit representation of state spaces with more than 10 8 states on a normal PC. We briefly describe our implementation in the process mining tool ProM and how we have used it to improve an existing provider.},
   year = {2011}
}

Declare 2.0.9 Released

Michael — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:28:05 +0000

After what seems like a long hiatus (though, in reality, we have just been working behind the curtains), we have now released the Declare System in version 2.0.9. This version is much faster, and can handle much larger models using the approach described in [1] and is compatible with the operational support service in ProM 6.1 described in [2]. This version is a testing release prior to the forthcoming final 2.1 release.

[1] M. Westergaard, Better Algorithms for Analyzing and Enacting Declarative Workflow Languages Using LTL, in span style=font-style: italicProc. of BPM/span, Springer-Verlag, 2011.
[Bibtex]

@incollection{improved_translation,
  Author = {M. Westergaard},
  Title = {{Better Algorithms for Analyzing and Enacting Declarative Workflow Languages Using LTL}},
  Year = {2011},
  Publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
  Series = {LNCS}, 
  Booktitle = {{Proc. of BPM}}, 
}

@incollection{osprotocol,
   author = {Westergaard, Michael and Maggi, Fabrizio},
   affiliation = {Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands},
   title = {Modeling and Verification of a Protocol for Operational Support Using Coloured Petri Nets},
   booktitle = {Applications and Theory of Petri Nets},
   series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
   editor = {Kristensen, Lars and Petrucci, Laure},
   publisher = {Springer Berlin / Heidelberg},
   isbn = {978-3-642-21833-0},
   keyword = {Computer Science},
   pages = {169-188},
   volume = {6709},
   doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-21834-7_10},
   note = {10.1007/978-3-642-21834-7_10},
   abstract = {In this paper, we describe the modeling and analysis of a protocol for operational support during workflow enactment. Operational support provides online replies to questions such as “is my execution valid?” and “how do I end the execution in the fastest/cheapest way?”, and may be invoked multiple times for each execution. Multiple applications (operational support providers) may be able to answer such questions, so a protocol supporting this should be able to handle multiple providers, maintain data between queries about the same execution, and discard information when it is no longer needed. We present a coloured Petri net model of a protocol satisfying our requirements. The model is used both to make our requirements clear by building a model-based prototype before implementation and to verify that the devised protocol is correct. We present techniques to make analysis of the large state-space of the model possible, including modeling techniques and an improved state representation for coloured Petri nets allowing explicit representation of state spaces with more than 10 8 states on a normal PC. We briefly describe our implementation in the process mining tool ProM and how we have used it to improve an existing provider.},
   year = {2011}
}

Declare

Michael — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:33:19 +0000

Declare is a prototype of a workflow management system. The novelty in Declare is a declarative approach to business process modeling and execution. Unlike conventional systems, which use graph-like modeling languages (e.g., Petri-nets), Declare uses logic to model and execute business processes. Currently, Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) is the language used to develop process models in Declare.