Implementing SOA: Total Architecture in Practice

Chapter 10. Milestones

Whenever you have a business process, it is to be expected that people will want to know its status. Reporting status, particularly of complex processes, can be tricky. Generally, what people want to know is what business-meaningful state the process has reached. These are commonly referred to as the milestones in the business process. Unfortunately, simply reporting the last completed activity of the process may not provide this information.

Basic Process Milestones

In a simple process, there may not be a great deal of distinction between the individual process steps and the process milestones. But as process complexity increases, this distinction becomes more pronounced. Consider the Catalog Sales Order Process for a ...