Does anyone have experience implementing any of the available open source solutions? If so, which solution would be your recommendation?
A:
Perhaps a issue tracker? http://jtrac.info < have a look here first, if not this as a solution, then google : open source issue trackers : and there are so many I wouldn't know where to start.
As for approval/disapproval it would be a matter of creating a task, then assigning a task to an authorising officer pool, and having them return it to a developers pool if it were approved.
From experience things get hairy when the workload for each task allocated to the work pool varies. We used a PeopleSoft system at the Eternal Downward Spiral. This paid no attention to the body of work required, and I gather they paid alot for that awful "solution" !
Any workload distribution system I chose would at least take workload per task into account. This is because if you go by a daily work quota based to the total of tasks performed and cleared, and not quantative workload; you can and will have individuals who swoop on easy tasks, whom subsequently get praised for doing jack all.
I can't vouch for the first option I've provided a link to, but I've quickly cross-referenced it as being the top suggestion; as far a java issue tracking systems goes.
You might want a third step of Quality Assurance aswell, but I'd need more background to give any further advice of worth.
_ande_turner_
2008-10-13 16:28:12
+1
A:
Carlos E. Perez summarizes many different Open Source workflow engines, written in Java.
The post is getting a little old (Mar 2007), but is still full of useful information.
jamesh
2008-10-13 17:58:59
+1
A:
Alfresco does what you want (and much more) with very little customization. Not simple, but easy to setup.
OpenWFE is simple workflow, but in this case you would need to learn more concepts before you achieve your goal.
Syrup is even simpler if you do not need workflow managent functionality and plan to write your own front end.
Another workflow engines worth taking a look are jBPM, Bonita and Shark.
ddimitrov
2008-10-13 21:47:57
A:
OpenWFE moved on to Ruby, so that leaves the engines cited by ddimitrov (cheers) and also osworkflow. IIRC, you'll find them all in the Carlos E. Perez report cited by jamesh.
jmettraux
2008-10-13 23:03:42
So OpenWFE Java is officially unsupported now? Looks like OSWorkflow also hasn't had release since 2005.
ddimitrov
2008-10-13 23:15:45
supported in the sense there are still replies in the forums, but not releasing anymore.Too bad for OSWorkflow.
jmettraux
2008-10-14 05:37:59
A:
You can also check this question about Java open source workflow engines
antispam
2009-04-16 09:04:53