TobFlow (Total Object Base and Flow or the Object Flow) is an internet application platform to manage forms and workflows. It is made of an engine which manages the user interface (forms) and the scheduling of tasks (workflows) based on object model descriptions.
Audaxis started the development in 2005, and TobFlow is now since 2008 under GPLv3 license.
The rationale of TobFlow is to propose a true document workflow tool, which, right from the design phase, combines the document approach (forms to fill in) and the process approach (sequence of tasks to fulfill a business objective). The solution is based on the notion of objects (i.e. information sets) that are defined both by the way they are presented to users (forms and views) and by their life sequence (workflow process).
The result is a flexible workflow tool where multi objects applications are both easy for business experts to design and for users to handle thanks to straight forward access to tasks and user friendly documents.
Potential application areas are many :
Quality management.
Peripheral to ERP data collection and validation.
HR oriented workflows (e.g. vacation authorization).
Enterprise Content Management (ECM).
And it has been designed to be as generic as possible in order to adapt to any data flow situation.
Models of object (for instance an incident report, a product modification request, a RFE) are fed into the engine under the form of structured XML files which describe the data, the form tabs and fields, the workflow steps, etc. The engine interprets the design elements and users can directly input data in the new form and send it to the next persons involved in the process.
The object models can be built by directly creating the XML files according to TobFlow syntax, or through a modeling tool which is separately proposed by one of the partners and which permits to graphically design the object form and process.