Influence of exception handling on the support of cooperative office work

ABSTRACT

Cooperative work on office tasks can be understood as consisting of steps to be carried out by persons acting in organizational functions. In many cases, neither the number of steps nor the persons involved are known in advance. Often, deviations from predefined cooperation procedures and exception handling become necessary. Moreover, many tasks are completely unformalized. Thus, support of exception handling has become a crucial requirement. ProMlnanD represents office tasks by means of Electronic Circulation Folders which migrate automatically through an office organization transferring arbitrary kinds of documents. A migration specification describes the formalized part of office tasks. The user requirements on cooperation support and their impact on the design of ProMlnanD are presented.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.1 Applications and Expert Systems
          Subjects: Office automation

General Terms:
Design, Management