Draft:Spiffworkflow

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Last edited by Danfunk (talk | contribs) 3 days ago. (Update)

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Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Danfunk (talk) 20:28, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

SpiffWorkflow is a lightweight process orchestration and workflow execution engine written in Python and able to process the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0 and Decision Model and Notation (DMN) Standards. It is released under the LGPL Open Source license. ^[1]

Overview

SpiffWorkflow is designed for Citizen Developers (used here to describe domain experts across many disciplines, who write some software as a part of their work), to provide a tool that allows novice programmers to connect high level visual diagrams to python scripts in order to solve business problems unique to their organization.^[2]

Comparison

SpiffWorkflow is similar to more established enterprise BPMN based solutions, such as Caumunda, Flowable, and Pega Systems. One of the key differences is that SpiffWorkflow is designed to work exclusively with the Python programming language. ^[3]

Usage

SpiffWorkflow is used as a part of many research studies across disciplines. SpiffWorkflow was used to create patient flow simulations for hospitals in a study by the University of Szeged ^[4], and provided loosely coupled directives for guiding multiple Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGV). ^[5] SpiffWorkflow also been applied in Earth Science Lab Management to create flexible and comprehensive workflows for laboratory research. ^[6] And SpiffWorkflow was used as a basis for testing common design patterns for standard approval processes. ^[7]

SpiffWorkflow was applied within the University of Virginia to manage the preparation for the submission of clinical research studies to the institutional review board.^[2] And is being used in a pilot project at Emerson Electric Company to improve operational efficiency in some of its shared internal operations.^[8]

History

SpiffWorkflow was created by Samuel Abels (@knipknap on GitHub) in 2010. The project was picked up by Sartography in 2020 where it was expanded and re-written for use at the University of Virginia. As of 2025, the project has 44 contributors and over 1700 stars on GitHub. ^[1] It has spawned several additional open source projects including SpiffArena ^[9] a complete workflow orchestration platform. In 2025, SpiffWorks began offering a hosted version of SpiffWorkflow as a service. ^[10]

References

^ ^a ^b "SpiffWorkflow on GitHub".
^ ^a ^b Funk, D. (January–February 2023). "Creating a Low-Code Business Process Execution Platform With Python, BPMN, and DMN". IEEE Software. 40 (1): 9–17. doi:10.1109/MS.2022.3212033.
^ https://www.spiffworkflow.org/pages/compare/
^ Szabó, Z.; Hompoth, E. A.; Bilicki, V. (2024). "Patient Flow Analysis with a Custom Simulation Engine". Acta Cybernetica. 26 (3): 637–669. doi:10.14232/actacyb.299391.
^ Lin, P.; Li, X.; Fan, Z.; Xu, Y. (2022). Realization of AGV Task Management. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA). Guilin, Guangxi, China. pp. 53–58. doi:10.1109/ICMA54519.2022.9856349.
^ Pruß, Gunnar; Rach, Oliver (2023). BPMN4EARTH: Metadata Enriched & Automated Workflows (PDF). European Geophysical Union (EGU). Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam: Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Section 4.6 Geomorphology. Retrieved 2025-06-24.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ EuroPLoP '23: Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs Article No.: 1, Pages 1 - 22 https://doi.org/10.1145/3628034.3628035
^ https://spiff.works/success-stories
^ https://github.com/sartography/spiff-arena
^ https://spiff.works/

[github-1] "SpiffWorkflow on GitHub".

[lowcode-2] Funk, D. (January–February 2023). "Creating a Low-Code Business Process Execution Platform With Python, BPMN, and DMN". IEEE Software. 40 (1): 9–17. doi:10.1109/MS.2022.3212033.

[3] ttps://www.spiffworkflow.org/pages/compare/

[4] Szabó, Z.; Hompoth, E. A.; Bilicki, V. (2024). "Patient Flow Analysis with a Custom Simulation Engine". Acta Cybernetica. 26 (3): 637–669. doi:10.14232/actacyb.299391.

[5] Lin, P.; Li, X.; Fan, Z.; Xu, Y. (2022). Realization of AGV Task Management. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA). Guilin, Guangxi, China. pp. 53–58. doi:10.1109/ICMA54519.2022.9856349.

[6] Pruß, Gunnar; Rach, Oliver (2023). BPMN4EARTH: Metadata Enriched & Automated Workflows (PDF). European Geophysical Union (EGU). Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam: Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Section 4.6 Geomorphology. Retrieved 2025-06-24.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

[7] EuroPLoP '23: Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs Article No.: 1, Pages 1 - 22 https://doi.org/10.1145/3628034.3628035

[8] ttps://spiff.works/success-stories

[9] ttps://github.com/sartography/spiff-arena

[10] ttps://spiff.works/

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