Implementing Business Processes: A Database Trigger Approach

Database triggers are database procedures that are executed automatically when certain events occur and conditions are met. This paper presents a design methodology that helps users implement business processes using database triggers. The contributions of this paper are as follows. First, the proposed methodology uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML). UML is a standard modeling language for the software industry and many commercial CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tools support UML. Second, many expensive ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software systems are employed to implement business processes. The methodology proposed by this paper produces triggers that can be executed on MySQL, an open-source database system that is free for download. Third, as an example of the usefulness of the proposed methodology, the authors present a case study making use of database triggers in a tax audit process. This process involves many steps that require human intervention, and thus is typical of business processes.