Supporting Direct User Interventions in Exception Handling in Workflow Management Systems Hernâni Raul Mourão Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais do Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal / LASIGE - Laboratório de Sistemas de Informação de Grande Escala, Campus do IPS  Estefanilha 2914  503 Setúbal hmourao@esce.ips.pt Pedro Antunes Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, LASIGE - Laboratório de Sistemas de Informação de Grande Escala, Campo Grande, Edifício C8, Piso 1 1749-016 Lisboa paa@di.fc.ul.pt Abstract. We developed a framework to handle exceptions in WfMS. Specially, unexpected exceptions, which are situations not predicted during the design phase, and require human involvement. A good charac- terization of the exception is needed to help the user in the identification of the solution(s) from an available tool kit: redesigning the flow, ad hoc executing the affected tasks, and manipulating engine status. The pro- posed characterization results from integrating operational, tactical and strategic perspectives over unex- pected exceptions. An open source platform was selected to establish a test base on which the framework will be tested. The framework will be implemented in one company and data from another company will be used for simulation. Resumo. Desenvolvemos uma plataforma para tratar excepções em sistemas de gestão de fluxos de trabalho. Em particular para as excepções não esperadas, que correspondem a situações não previstas durante a fase de modelação e necessitam do envolvimento do operador. Uma boa caracterização da excepção é importante para auxiliar o operador na escolha da solução(ões) num conjunto de ferramentas disponibilizadas: alterar a definição do fluxo de trabalho; executar de forma ad hoc as tarefas afectadas; ou manipular o estado do motor. A caracterização proposta resulta da integração das perspectivas operacional, táctica e estratégica sobre excepções não esperadas. Foi seleccionado um projecto open source para definir um ambiente onde a plataforma possa ser testada. O projecto será implementado numa empresa e dados recolhidos de uma outra empresa serão utilizados para simulação. 1 Introduction Workflow exceptions are situations not predicted in the workflow model or when there ex- ists a deviation from the model and the real world [Luo 2001]. Workflow exceptions have been accounted for almost half of the total working time in an office [Saastamoinen 1995]. Up to now workflow exceptions have mostly been addressed in a systems perspective, even though a consensus seems to arise on the necessity of involving the user in the recovery of a specific kind of exceptions. Therefore we developed a framework aimed to fulfill this identi- fied gap. The framework is built around the idea that human intervention must be supported with quality information about the problematic situation, status of the workflow engine and possible recovery solutions. Considering the work in progress, this paper currently offers two contributions to exception handling in WfMS: (1) an integrated perspective over exceptions and exception handling, considering three different organizational levels (strategic, tactic and operational) affected by exceptions and respective human roles in recovery (design changes, ad hoc execution, and