Workflow: Purchasing

An example of a workflow process is a purchase-order process. The process consist of actions, and a Message is a document that reflects the change of the process state. Here are examples of actions and messages and their states that can be defined for a purchase-order process. The flow could be defined as follows:

Algorithm

An employee submits a Purchase Request that must be approved or rejected by a supervisor purchase. If the supervisor approves the order, someone in Purchasing must place the Purchase Order: ask a list of Vendors for prices, select the best price, send order, get order acknowledgment; finally, the responsible Person has to check if the Delivery has been done in time and if the all requested products have been delivered. If there are some problems, a reklamation should be sent to the delivery.

Documents and States

Purchase Request
Approved
Rejected
Price Quotes
Purchase Order
Acknowledged
Invoice
Reklamation