External Metadata Service for Workflow Data Fields
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current workflow data field metadata provided by process engines is insufficient to fully define the appearance and behavior of data fields, leading to a suboptimal user experience in completing work items.
Innovation Solution
Integrating an external data service to provide enhanced metadata that constrains data fields in a user interface, including defining characteristics such as required fields, formatting, and validation, by sending requests to a metadata service and applying received metadata to the data fields.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If process engine provides metadata for data fields, then data field behavior can be defined, but the metadata is insufficient to fully define appearance and behavior
Solution Approach 1:
An external data service is introduced as an intermediary component that provides enhanced metadata for data fields. The process engine sends requests to this external service, which returns additional metadata information that complements the process engine's native metadata, thereby resolving the insufficiency of built-in metadata capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The external data service acts as a universal metadata provider that can supply various types of metadata information for different data field types and scenarios. This multi-functional service enhances the process engine's metadata capabilities without requiring the process engine to implement all metadata generation logic internally.
2Loss of information
If external data service is integrated to provide enhanced metadata, then data field appearance and behavior can be fully defined, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The external data service serves as a dedicated intermediary layer between the process engine and the data field rendering components. This mediator handles all complex metadata retrieval and enrichment operations externally, allowing the process engine to maintain a simpler core architecture while still accessing comprehensive metadata.
Solution Approach 2:
The metadata provisioning functionality is segmented between the process engine (which handles workflow logic) and the external data service (which handles metadata enrichment). This segmentation allows each component to focus on its specific function, reducing overall system complexity despite the addition of the external service.
Data Source
AI summary
An external data service can be integrated to enhance the metadata of workflow data fields. In response to processing a data field, a request may be sent to a metadata service for a metadata associated with the data field. In response to receiving the metadata, the metadata may be applied to the data field such that the data field as presented in a user interface is constrained according to one or more characteristics defined by the metadata.