Abstract: The flexibility of workflow has become an important issue for workflow system to adapt to the changing business requirements. The application of workflow system is divided into modeling stage and running stage. The static path of existing workflow system can’t adapt to the changing needs of the current enterprise business process path. This paper analyzes the path change problem in the running stage to improve the flexibility of workflow by studying the related theoretical methods and technical solutions. In this paper, the existing workflow path backoff algorithm is improved to support parallel multi-step backoff, which solves the dynamic path problem of workflow system. In addition, the current large number of applications of approval and countersignature function are analyzed, and a solution of dynamically adding parallel branches in operation is proposed, which further improves the path flexibility of workflow. Finally, it is verified by an example. The test results show that the system can dynamically adjust its own path according to the changes of business requirements and operating environment, which greatly improves the flexibility of workflow system.

Key words: flexible workflow, workflow system, path change, dynamism