Essential Business Process Modeling

Summary

The main points of this chapter include:

• The WfMC was founded in 1993 and has more than 300 members. WfMC publishes BPM standards. The major standards are the reference model, XPDL, WAPI, and WfXML.

• The reference model describes the components and interfaces of a workflow/BPM architecture. Components include process definition tools, worklist client applications, invoked applications, administration and monitoring applications, and enactment services and their workflow engines. Interfaces are XPDL (XML process definition format that can be exported from a process definition tool to an enactment service), WAPI (API for client applications, invoked applications, and administration and monitoring applications), and WfXML (interenactment-service coordination).

• XPDL is the WfMC process definition language. XPDL represents a process as a directed graph of activities (manual, automatic, nested, route, and block) and transitions. The key to understanding XPDL is to grasp the flow of control brought about by guarded transitions, and AND and XOR splits and joins.

• XPDL is relatively weak on support for P4 patterns: it supports only 11 of the 20 patterns.

• WAPI is a set of C functions and equivalent IDL and COM Automation interfaces. Functional areas include connection management, process management, activity management, worklist, administration, and invoke applications.

• WfXML is the WfMC standard for communication between enactment services for the execution of heterogeneous processes, or ...