As workflow management systems become more complex and critical to an organisation's performance, there is an opportunity for a new generation of workflow management products. These products could greatly increase the scope of workflow management systems in target application areas. One of the key extensions to workflow management systems will be the use of transactional semantics to increase reliability.
Traditional transaction processing technology can not be used directly for workflow management since applications in workflow management are different from data-oriented applications, such as funds transfer. Customised workflow definition and workflow management capability is required to capture business requirements and rules.
This paper discusses the requirements and characteristics of transactional workflow management, addresses architectural issues of transactional workflow and its role in the telecommunication service management platform, and examines applications of transactional workflow for telecommunication service management.