Process-driven Application

A process-driven application is a software application that is driven by an underlying process engine where the process can be exposed and reused. In effect all applications are process-driven and the logic of any application can be extrapolated into a flowchart to represent the logical process of execution. Process-driven applications are a growing trend in enterprise solutions involving humans, systems or both.

Recently, Microsoft introduced the Windows Workflow Foundation (“WF”) which provides developers with the ability to separate application flow from application execution. A Microsoft product to use this approach is BizTalk Server, where orchestrations represent the order of execution. Both technologies provide graphical tools to manipulate processes and can form part of a process-driven application. They provide the process engine required to drive the application.

The term process-driven application was popularized by K2 in 2008 when describing applications driven by processes, and originally referred to applications driven by their business process management ("BPM") software known as K2 blackpearl. The term has now gained wider acceptance and refers to any application driven by a process engine.