DSS and Workflows

I worked with decision support systems for over two years.  It was about buying software and installing it on the servers.... I am talking about business intelligence solutions with OLAP report builders and data warehouses.  I found some problems with that as none of those solutions support workflow by themselves. I had to buy other software like Lotus Notes to support those funtions.  Additionally, I also needed to support group meetings and build a knowledge database around all of this.

The problem is that I ended with many applications running one beside the other but in reality those were not connected.  By this I mean that they were not an information system but only isolated computer applications.

I see decision support systems as comprising all the elements I've mentioned, and as a coherent unit emulating the brains, nerves and muscles of the organisations.  As a system analyst and as a programmer I've always found problems in modeling those situations and transforming them into programming languages.  For example, could you use UML to model a group decision support or a workflow system?  Is there any modelling framework that offers a wider view to that kind of systems?

CLK
Monday, May 10, 2004

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