Enabling Cost-Effective Light-Weight Disconnected Workflow for Web-based Teamwork Support

Research into Web-based teamwork support using workflow has assumed that the network connection exists permanently, i.e. online. However, there is an increasing demand that workflow environments should also support the disconnected offline mobile scenario which is so far not well addressed. This paper identifies radical requirements, describes cost-effective design and implementation strategies, and demonstrates the prototype for team members to facilitate workflow in a light-weight disconnected mode in addition to that of the normal connected mode. The work enables teamwork support with smooth switching over between the connected online and disconnected offline mobile modes. The disconnected workflow offers the similar view, i.e. “look and feel”, and is platform independent to users as with the connected workflow. The outcome is achieved with an attractive fractional effort resulted from significant reuse by developers based on the existing connected Web-based workflow architecture, design and implementation.