So ‘in-context’ reporting should be very easily achievable via simple web client customization, such as adding an action icon. Because all workflow data will be exposed via REST interface, all those ‘in-context’ invocations will just need to hit a certain URL and maybe pass a few parameters in.

As far as enabling ad-hoc reports, I’m trying to strike a balance. Instead of exposing the entire contents of the “workflow database” and enabling the caller to slice and dice it however they want, I’m planning to expose context specific buckets of workflow information. For example, users, groups, workflow definitions are examples of contexts. For each, I’ll expose all related data, including custom metadata where applicable. See my post about the design of this thing here.

Claudia asked me to chime in on workflow reporting. It looks like you have most of what I would have commented on. Not to be to repetitive I will focus some other things.

I am not sure of all that Alfresco currently tracks but for starters I have seen the need to track the following for a variety of customers:

Workflow Definition, Workflow instance (WI) start time, WI Completion time, WI Imitator, WI Status (in process, current, abandoned/cancelled), time when notes/comment where added, state of item in workflow (versioned and tagged) to allow comparisons, task start/finish time, and escalation occurrence for tasks/WI.

I see that you are starting on user and group reporting, but I do see a lot of requirements for system/global level reporting.

Everything in your list for reporting contexts seems to be spot on, I have seen each multiple times in reporting requirements for variety of customers. I would pay attention to how the reports are invoked in respect to the context.

Some system allows you to navigate to an item and invoke the report (call it “in-context”). This is nice if system is structured in way that allows the user to invoke the simple reports with the same interaction with the UI. This general limited to simple reports and limited ad hoc capabilities. Some systems treat documents/content and workflow definitions differently causing inconsistent UI interaction for reporting.

The other side is to create a centralized workflow management GUI would allow for more complex multi-value reporting. The downside is more complexity creating another way to select items to report on, beyond “in-context” reporting leveraging the OOB GUI. Plus side is the ability to create global, and complex ad hoc reports.

Of course have both would centralized report and “in-context” reporting features would be nice.

This still has my focus, and I’ve started on it. I’m starting out with user and group based reporting, and will then move into other types of reports. I would love to get more feedback on specifics - what data would you want to see in these reports? Please comment here.

Thanks,
-Brian