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BACKGROUND

0001 Workflows are currently used to describe methods or processes in many fields Such as job-shop Scheduling, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), document lifecycle management, busi ness process management and the like. A workflow is often represented as a flowchart for example and comprises a col lection of tasks and specified as order (or at least a partial order) for carrying out the tasks. A workflow may also com prise conditions for invoking tasks and typically resources or sets of resources are pre-assigned for each task. Those resources may be factory equipment for example in the case of job-shop scheduling or may be any other resource includ ing human agents. Workflow engines are used to control execution of specified workflows and determine when a pro cess is ready to move to a next step. 0002 Windows Workflow Foundation (trade …