Time Pattern TP7: Validity Period

In general, different versions of an activity or process may exist, but only one version shall be valid at a specific point in time.

Time Pattern TP7: Validity Period
Also known as
-
Problem
A particular activity or process may be only executed within a particular validity period, i.e., its lifetime is restricted to this validity period. The respective activity or process may only be instantiated within this validity period.
Design Choices
CFixed Date Elements can be applied to different process granularities
 aSingle activity (including multi-instance activities)
 cProcess model
FFixed Date Element can restrict four dates of an activity (process)
 aEarliest start date,
 bLatest start date,
 cEarliest completion date,
 dLatest completion date
Solution
Validity Period

To realize this pattern a validity period is attached to the respective activity or process respectively.

Upon instantiation of the respective activity or process, its validity period needs to be checked. If the current time does not match with the activities (processes) validity period or the minimum duration of the activity (process) will result in the completion of the activity (process) being outside of the respective validity period, appropriate exception handling is required.

Context
The validity period needs to be known before the respective process is executed.
Examples
  • Starting from Jan 1st patients need to be informed about any risk before the actual treatment takes place (Design Choice C[c] F[a]).
  • From next week on the new service version should get life (Design Choice C[a] F[a]).

Animation

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Product Evaluation

We differentiate between supported, partially supported, not supported, and not specified.
If an evaluation object provides support for the particular pattern the supported design choices are listed. If the pattern is only partially supported (e.g., by a work-around) this is indicated by the additional label "*" and if support is not specified this is indicated by the label "?". Missing support is labeled with "-".

Product/Language Version Score Motivation
Microsoft Outlook 2010 No constraints on activity dates supported
Sunbird 1.0 No constraints on activity dates supported
Google Calendar 12.2011 No constraints on activity dates supported
Microsoft Project 2010 not supported
BPMN 2.0 not supported
IBM Websphere Integration Developer 6.1 C[c], F[a] partially supported
WebSphere Lombardi Edition 7.1 not supported
AristaFlow 1.0.1 not supported
Intalio 6.0.3 not supported
TIBCO Business Studio 3.4.2 not supported
Bettini et al.   C[a?], F[a?,b?,c?,d?] not discussed but may be possible similar to TP4
Combi et al.   C[a], F[a,d] partially supported using absolute constraint
Eder et al.   C[a?], F[c?,d?] not discussed but may be possible similar to TP4
Marjanovic et al.   C[a?,c?], F[a?,b?,c?,d?] not discussed but may be possible similar to TP4
Zhuge et al.   C[a?], F[b?] not discussed but can be supported similar to TP4