Dynamic workflow architectures for loan processing
View Patent ↗Systems and methods are provided for processing loan applications in dynamic workflows. In a preferred embodiment, a system calls an activity engine with a top-level activity for processing a work-item, e.g., a loan application. The activity engine decomposes the top-level activity into child activities and lower-level child activities, and recursively calls itself to process the child activities until all constituent child activities have been preformed, thus performing the original top-level activity. In the preferred embodiment, each activity, work-item, user, event and role has associated rules, wherein an event represents a change in state of an activity and a role represents a class of users of the system having shared attributes. The evaluation of the associated rules dynamically creates the flow of activities, thereby creating a dynamic workflow.
1. A method for dynamically processing a workflow, comprising:
by a computing system, launching a plurality of activities representing tasks to be completed in the processing of the workflow, wherein execution to completion of at least some of the activities is dependent upon a change in state of at least one other of the plurality of activities;
providing a user interface including graphical indications of at least some of the activities;
at a current stage in the processing of the workflow, and by the computing system:
determining that a first set of the plurality of activities are currently available for execution, wherein the user can interact with the user interface to select any of the activities in the first set of activities for execution;
determining that a second set of the plurality of activities are not currently available for execution, wherein the availability for execution of the activities in the second set is currently dependent upon a change in state of the at least one other of the plurality of activities;
updating the graphical indications based at least in part on the determining that a second set of the plurality of activities are not currently available for execution; and
in response to user interaction with the user interface, executing at least one activity in the first set of activities.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sequence of execution of the plurality of activities dynamically unfolds and is not statically defined at the outset of processing the workflow.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the availability for execution of at least some of the activities in the second set of activities is dependent on a change in state of at least one of the activities in the first set.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, for a first activity of the plurality of activities:
detecting an event that indicates a change in state of another activity of the plurality of activities that renders the first activity no longer complete and valid; and
changing a status of the first activity to indicate that the first activity is no longer complete and valid,
wherein the availability for execution of at least one of the activities in the second set is dependent upon the first activity being complete and valid.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the workflow is for processing a loan application.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
during the processing of the workflow, adding a new rule associated with one or more of the plurality of activities; and
by the computing system, processing the one or more activities for which the new rule was added using at least the new rule.
7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
during the processing of the workflow, adding an activity to the plurality of activities; and
by the computing system, launching the added activity.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, based on the role of a current user in a group of users associated with the processing of the workflow, filtering the plurality of activities to arrive at a subset of the plurality of activities that are associated with the current user, wherein the activities in the first set are included in the subset.
9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
during the processing of the workflow, adding a new user to the group of users associated with the workflow, wherein said step of filtering the plurality of activities to arrive at the subset is performed for the new user.
10. A method for dynamically processing a workflow, comprising:
by a computing system, launching a plurality of activities representing tasks to be completed in the processing of the workflow, wherein execution to completion of at least some of the activities is dependent upon a change in state of at least one other of the plurality of activities;
providing a user interface including graphical indications of at least some of the activities;
determining that a first set of the plurality of activities are currently available for execution, wherein the user can interact with the user interface to select the activities in the first set of activities for execution;
in response to a change in state of at least one of the activities in the first set of activities, determining that a second set of the plurality of activities are currently available for execution, wherein at least one of the activities in the second set is not included in the first set, and the user can interact with the user interface to initiate execution of the second set of activities; and
updating the graphical indications based at least in part on the determining that a second set of the plurality of activities are currently available for execution in response to a change in state of at least one of the activities in the first set of activities.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the sequence of execution of the plurality of activities dynamically unfolds and is not statically defined at the outset of processing the workflow.
12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the workflow is for processing a loan application.
13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising, in response to a change in state of an activity of the plurality of activities from being complete and valid to being no longer complete and valid, determining that an activity in the first set is no longer available for execution and is not to be included in the second set.
14. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
during the processing of the workflow, adding a new rule associated with one or more of the plurality of activities; and
by the computing system, processing the one or more activities for which the new rule was added using at least the new rule.
15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
during the processing of the workflow, adding an activity to the plurality of activities; and
by the computing system, launching the added activity.
16. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
based on the role of a current user in a group of users associated with the processing of the workflow, filtering the plurality of the plurality of activities to arrive at a subset of the plurality of activities that are associated with the current user; and
wherein the first and second sets of the plurality of activities include only activities in the filtered subset.
17. A method for dynamically processing a workflow, comprising:
by a computing system, launching a plurality of activities representing tasks to be completed in the processing of the workflow, wherein execution to completion of at least some of the activities is dependent upon a change in state of at least one other of the plurality of activities;
providing a user interface including graphical indications of at least some of the activities;
at a first stage in the processing of the workflow, by the computing system:
determining that a first set of the plurality of activities are currently available for execution, wherein the user can interact with the user interface to select the activities in the first set of activities for execution;
determining that a second set of the plurality of activities are not currently available for execution, wherein the availability for execution of the activities in the second set is currently dependent upon a change in state of the at least one other of the plurality of activities;
updating the graphical indications based at least in part on the determining that a second set of the plurality of activities are not currently available for execution;
at a second stage in the processing of the workflow that is subsequent to the first stage, by the computing system:
in response to a change in state of an activity in the first set of activities, determining that a third set of the plurality of activities are currently available for execution, wherein the user can interact with the user interface to initiate execution of the third set of activities, and wherein the third set of activities includes at least one of the activities in the second set of activities.