Dynamic, extensible and context-aware exception handling for workflows

This paper presents the realisation, using a Service Oriented Architecture, of an approach for dynamic, flexible and extensible exception handling in workflows, based not on proprietary frameworks, but on accepted ideas of how people actually work. The resultant service implements a detailed taxonomy of workflow exception patterns to provide an extensible repertoire of self-contained exception-handling processes called exlets, which may be applied at the task, case or specification levels. When an exception occurs at runtime, an exlet is dynamically selected from the repertoire depending on the context of the exception and of the particular work instance. Both expected and unexpected exceptions are catered for in real time, so that ‘manual handling’ is avoided