Management thinking has changed focus from bringing in new customers to under- standing the significance of maintaining existing customers and the need to attain loyalty with these customers. This has increased the importance of keeping good customer relationships. One important element to attain good customer relations is through a solid customer support. In this thesis a customer support approach for a software consultancy company has been implemented. The goal was to create a SharePoint Online application that would work as a single point of contact for the customers to improve the issue resolution process. Requirements elicitation was done through five customer interviews to obtain opinions and needs. Moreover, based on the customer requirements a workshop were held with developers from the consultancy firm to design a workflow proto- type. The final result is a customer-centered process that takes reported issues and manages the tickets through the issue life cycle until the issue is resolved. The approaches relies heavily on light-weight feedback in terms of mail notifications, reminders, and automatic assignment of tasks. The new process was developed in SharePoint Online and implemented using SharePoint Designer.

When creating materials in computer graphics, the most common method is to estimate the properties based on intuition. This seems like a flawed approach, seeing as a big part of the industry has already moved to a physically based workflow. A better method would be to observe real material properties, and use that data in the application. This research delves into the art of material creation by first explaining the theory behind the properties of materials through a literature review. The review also reveals techniques that separate and visually presents these properties to artists, giving them a better understanding of how a material behaves. Through action research, an empirical study then presents a workflow for creating photorealistic renders using data collected with these techniques. While the techniques still require subjective decisions when recreating the materials, they do help artists create more accurate renderings with less guesswork.

Data have become number one assets of today's business world. Thus, its exploitation and analysis attracted the attention of people from different fields and having different technical backgrounds. Data-intensive flows are central processes in today’s business intelligence (BI) systems, deploying different technologies to deliver data, from a multitude of data sources, in user-preferred and analysis-ready formats. However, designing and optimizing such data flows, to satisfy both users' information needs and agreed quality standards, have been known as a burdensome task, typically left to the manual efforts of a BI system designer. These tasks have become even more challenging for next generation BI systems, where data flows typically need to combine data from in-house transactional storages, and data coming from external sources, in a variety of formats (e.g. social media, governmental data, news feeds). Moreover, for making an impact to business outcomes, data flows are expected to answer unanticipated analytical needs of a broader set of business users' and deliver valuable information in near real-time (i.e. at the right time). These challenges largely indicate a need for boosting the automation of the design and optimization of data-intensive flows. This PhD thesis aims at providing automatable means for managing the lifecycle of data-intensive flows. The study primarily analyzes the remaining challenges to be solved in the field of data-intensive flows, by performing a survey of current literature, and envisioning an architecture for managing the lifecycle of data-intensive flows. Following the proposed architecture, we further focus on providing automatic techniques for covering different phases of the data-intensive flows' lifecycle. In particular, the thesis first proposes an approach (CoAl) for incremental design of data-intensive flows, by means of multi-flow consolidation. CoAl not only facilitates the maintenance of data flow designs in front of changing information needs, but also supports the multi-flow optimization of data-intensive flows, by maximizing their reuse. Next, in the data warehousing (DW) context, we propose a complementary method (ORE) for incremental design of the target DW schema, along with systematically tracing the evolution metadata, which can further facilitate the design of back-end data-intensive flows (i.e. ETL processes). The thesis then studies the problem of implementing data-intensive flows into deployable formats of different execution engines, and proposes the BabbleFlow system for translating logical data-intensive flows into executable formats, spanning single or multiple execution engines. Lastly, the thesis focuses on managing the execution of data-intensive flows on distributed data processing platforms, and to this end, proposes an algorithm (H-WorD) for supporting the scheduling of data-intensive flows by workload-driven redistribution of data in computing clusters. The overall outcome of this thesis an end-to-end platform for managing the lifecycle of data-intensive flows, called Quarry. The techniques proposed in this thesis, plugged to the Quarry platform, largely facilitate the manual efforts, and assist users of different technical skills in their analytical tasks. Finally, the results of this thesis largely contribute to the field of data-intensive flows in today's BI systems, and advocate for further attention by both academia and industry to the problems of design and optimization of data-intensive flows. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The goal of the thesis is the optimization of non-compliant processes and the design of effective workflow for centralization of processing vendor master data at PPG Industries. The idea of unique process leads to savings and also to standardization and thus fulfills legal requirements. In the first part the project deals with the identification of processes, defines central model and process maps used to draft a more efficient process. Proposing part uses the findings to the previous chapters and focuses on implementation to workflow using Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. Final output is the definition of efficient workflow and metrics demonstrating a clear benefit in using these procedures at PPG Industries.

Dans les domaines scientifiques, particulièrement en bioinformatique, des services élémentaires sont composés sous forme de workflows pour effectuer des expériences d’analyse de données complexes. À cause de l’hétérogénéité des ressources, la composition de services est une tâche difficile. Les utilisateurs, en composant des workflows, manquent d’assistance pour retrouver et interconnecter les services compatibles. Les solutions existantes utilisent des services spéciaux définis de manière manuelle pour gérer les conversions de formats de données entre les entrées et sorties des services dans les workflows. Cela est pénible pour un utilisateur final. Gérer les incompatibilités des services avec des convertisseurs manuels prend du temps et est lourd. Il existe des solutions automatisées pour faciliter la composition de workflows mais elles sont généralement limitées dans le guidage et l’adaptation des données entre services. La première contribution de cette thèse propose de détecter systématiquement la convertibilité des sorties vers les entrées des services. La détection de convertibilité repose sur un système de règles basé sur une abstraction des types d’entrée et sortie des services. L’abstraction de types permet de considérer la nature et la composition des données d’entrée et sortie. Les règles permettent la décomposition et la composition ainsi que la spécialisation et la généralisation de types. Elles permettent également de générer des convertisseurs de données à utiliser entre services dans les workflows. La deuxième contribution propose une approche interactive qui permet de guider des utilisateurs à composer des workflows en fournissant des suggestions de services et de liaisons compatibles basées sur la convertibilité de types d’entrée et sortie des services. L’approche est basée sur le modèle des Systèmes d’Information Logiques (LIS) qui permettent des requêtes et une navigation guidées et sûres sur des données représentées avec une logique uniforme. Avec notre approche, la composition de workflows est sûre et complète vis-à-vis de propriétés désirées. Les résultats et les expériences, effectués sur des services et des types de données en bioinformatique, montrent la pertinence de nos approches. Nos approches offrent des mécanismes adaptés pour gérer les incompatibilités de services dans les workflows, en prenant en compte la structure composite des données d’entrée et sortie. Elles permettent également de guider, étape par étape, des utilisateurs à définir des workflows bien formés à travers des suggestions pertinentes. / In scientific domains, particularly in bioinformatics, elementary services are composed as workflows to perform complex data analysis experiments. Due to the heterogeneity of resources, the composition of services is a difficult task. Users, when composing workflows, lack assistance to find and interconnect compatible services. Existing solutions use special services manually defined to manage data format conversions between the inputs and outputs of services in workflows, it is difficult for an end user. Managing service incompatibilities with manual converters is time-consuming and heavy. There are automated solutions to facilitate composing workflows but they are generally limited in the guidance and the data adaptation between services they offer. The first contribution of this thesis proposes to systematically detect convertibility from outputs to inputs of services. Convertibility detection relies on a rule system based on an abstraction of input and output types of services. Type abstraction enables to consider the nature and the composition of input and output data. Rules enable decomposition and composition as well as specialization and generalization of types. They also enable to generate data converters to use between services in workflows. The second contribution proposes an interactive approach that enables to guide users to compose workflows by providing suggestions of compatible services and links based on convertibility of input and output types of services. The approach is based on the framework of Logical Information Systems (LIS) that enables safe and guided requests and navigation on data represented with a uniform logic. With our approach, composition of workflows is safe and complete w.r.t. desired properties. The results and experiences, conducted on bioinformatics services and datatypes, show the relevance of our approaches. Our approaches offer adapted mechanisms to manage service incompatibilities in workflows, by taking into account the composite structure of inputs and outputs data. They enable to guide, step by step, users to define well-formed workflows through relevant suggestions.

Usability heuristics have been established for different uses and applications as general guidelines for user interfaces. These can affect the implementation of industry solutions and play a significant role regarding cost reduction and process efficiency. The area of electronic workflow document management (EWDM) solutions, also known as workflow, lacks a formal definition of usability heuristics. With the advent of new technologies such as mobile devices, defining a set of usability heuristics contributes to the adoption and efficiency of an EWDM system. Workflow usability has been evaluated for various industries. Most significantly research has been done for electronic healthcare records (EHR). In other areas such as the financial sector and educational institutions there is also some literature available but not as abundant as for EHR. This was identified as a possible research limitation. The general purpose of this research was to establish and validate an overarching set of usability heuristics for EWDM in general. This was approached by conducting a literature review and a survey on 32 workflow consultants from Hyland Software, Inc. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected focusing on the study’s main research question: “what usability heuristics should be defined to ensure the adoption and efficiency of a workflow implementation?" Findings based on regression testing and expert opinions have suggested a proposed set of usability heuristics. The final list consists of: adaptability to diverse platforms, user control, system feedback, intuitive interfaces, visibility on mobile devices, error management, help, and documentation.

Une propriété d'un objet est dite opaque pour un observateur si celui-ci ne peut déduire que la propriété est satisfaite sur la base de l'observation qu'il a de cet objet. Supposons qu'un certain de nombre de propriétés (appelées secrets) soient attachées à chaque intervenant d'un système, nous dirons alors que le système lui-même est opaque si chaque secret d'un observateur lui est opaque : il ne peut percer aucun des secrets qui lui ont été attachés. L'opacité a été étudié préalablement dans le contexte des systèmes à événements discrets où différents jeux d'hypothèses ont pu être identifiés pour lesquels on pouvait d'une part décider de l'opacité d'un système et d'autre part développer des techniques pour diagnostiquer et/ou forcer l'opacité. Cette thèse constitue la première contribution au problème de l'opacité des artefacts d'un système à flots de tâches (système workflow). Notre propos est par conséquent de formaliser ce problème en dégageant les hypothèses qui doivent être posées sur ces systèmes pour que l'opacité soit décidable. Nous indiquons quelques techniques pour assurer l'opacité d'un système. / A property (of an object) is opaque to an observer when he or she cannot deduce the property from its set of observations. If each observer is attached to a given set of properties (the so-called secrets), then the system is said to be opaque if each secret is opaque to the corresponding observer. Opacity has been studied in the context of discrete event dynamic systems where technique of control theory were designed to enforce opacity. This thesis is the first attempt to formalize opacity of artifacts in data-centric workflow systems. We motivate this problem and give some assumptions that guarantee the decidability of opacity. Some techniques for enforcing opacity are indicated.

This work documents the whole process of developing an information system for a small advertising agency. Its main sphere of business is the internet, hence the company is classified as a digital or interactive agency. My objectives are: analyzing business processes, assembling the functional specification and developing the core of the application and the module for a document management. I start with gathering some common parameters of DMS along with requirements for a web application framework, which is intended to use for a base of the intranet. Then I move to presenting specifics of our agency and I analyze its processes in order to capture all content and desired functionality of the developed system. Next phase is dedicated to design. First, I set the intranet in the context of global Enterprise architecture. I continue with modeling all architectural layers (conceptual, technological and implemental). The application is modular and benefits from using MVC architectural pattern. DMS module implements workflow functionality and I have used principles of Workflow Management Coalition to design that features. The last part of my work describes developed modules in more detail. My objectives were accomplished, core of the intranet is developed and currently in process of testing.

The main objective of this thesis is to make an analysis and to design of a system for the support of distant management staff. An emphasis is placed upon the system design for effective utilization in practice and openness for further development. The theoretical part is divided into three main chapters. The first chapter is about describing the issues of process and project management in terms of the focus of this thesis. The output of this chapter is a list of the general requirements of the system for the support of distant management staff. In the second chapter is an analysis of the market with systems that best meet the defined general requirements. The third chapter is about describing the methods which are used in the practical part of this thesis. The practical part is mainly about realizing the main objective of this thesis. The practical part is divided into three main chapters. The first chapter contains a catalog of requirements for the system for support remote management staff. The second chapter is describing the design of the requirements defined in the first chapter of practical part. The last chapter of this thesis contains a comparison of the designed system and other systems of a similar type.

This thesis is focused on the design of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 in a selected company. The main objective of this thesis is to identify the needs and requirements of the selected company and then propose a suitable intranet solution built on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013. These objectives were achieved by deep analysis of various sources, as well as through consultations with experts, and also from practical experience of the author, acquired in Al-gotech Corporation. The main contribution of this thesis is creating a comprehensive summary of the issue and develop an appropriate solution design for a specific organisation. In this thesis, the author initially focuses on the concept of Enterprise Content Management (ECM), in the next section the author will analyse available tools on the market. In the final stage, the author will analyse specific requirements of the company, based on which he will create the recommendation for the optimal solution.