Workflow Management Coalition (WFMC) Standards

Presented by:

khansa abubkr Lemia alamin Alaa basheer Sara dafa’allah Haleema Mustafa

Background What’s Workflow Management Coalition

(WFMC) Standards WfMC Structure and Refrence Model What’s XPDL What’s Wf-XML What’s BPAF

Overview of Process Definition Interchange :

A Process Definition is defined as: The representation of a business process in a form that supports

automated manipulation, such as modeling, or enactment by a workflow management system. The process definition consists of a network of activities and their relationships, criteria to indicate the start and termination of the process, and information about the individual activities, such as participants, associated IT applications and data, etc.

Cont.. The process definition provides an environment

for a rich description of a process that can be used for the following:

Act as a template for the creation and control of instances of that process during process enactment.

For simulation and forecasting. As a basis to monitor and analyse enacted

processes. For documentation, visualization, and knowledge

management.

What’s Workflow Management Coalition Standards Definition :

 is a consortium formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems. It was founded in May 1993 with original members including IBM, Hewlett-Packard , Fujitsu, ICL, Staffware and approximately 300 software and services firms in the business software sector.

Cont.. Created to:

Educate Define Common Language Encourage Usage Minimize risk

Advantages: Increase the value of customers’

investment with workflow technology Decrease the risk of using workflow

products Expand the workflow market through

increasing awareness for workflow

Structure Workflow Management Coalition Structure : The Coalition is divided into three major committees:

the Technical Committee, the External Relations Committee, the Steering Committee.

Small working groups exist within each committee for the purpose of defining workflow terminology, interoperability and connectivity standards, conformance requirements, and for assisting in the communication of this information to the workflow user community.

The Coalition’s major committees normally meet three times per calendar year for three days at a time, with meetings usually alternating between a North American and a European location. The working group meetings are held during these three days, and as necessary throughout the year.

Coalition membership is open to all interested parties involved in the creation, analysis or deployment of workflow software systems. Membership is governed by a Document of Understanding, which outlines meeting regulations, voting rights and so on.

Cont..

Coalition Working Groups : The Coalition has established a number of working groups, each

working on a particular area of specification. Working groups meet individually, and also under the umbrella

of the Technical Committee, which is responsible for overall technical direction and co-ordination.

The working groups are loosely structured around the "Workflow Reference Model" which provides the framework for the Coalition's standards program.

The Reference Model identifies the common characteristics of workflow systems and defines 5 discrete functional interfaces through which a workflow management system interacts with its environment - users, computer tools and applications, other software services, etc..

The WfMC Reference Model :

Process Definition & Modelling Tools

Process Management Engine

Specification 3

InvokedApplications

Specification 1 Process Definition

Audit Data

Specification 5 Specification 4 OtherProcess Management Systems

Specification 2

Performer Interface

Process Interoperability

Application Interface

Clients

Major Deliverables : Definition Glossary of terms Reference Model Specifications to support the Ref. Model

WFMC Standers:

XPDL WF- XML BPAF

What’s XPDL

XML Process Definition Language: standardized by the Workflow

Management Coalition to interchange Business Process definitions between diffe

rent workflow products.  XPDL defines an XML schema for

specifying the declarative part of workflow / business process.

Cont..  designed to exchange the process

definition. Best file format for exchange of BPMN

diagrams designed specifically to store all aspects

of a BPMN diagram.

What is BPMN ? BPMN, Business Process Modeling

Notation is a standardized graphical not ation for drawing business processes in a

workflow

Event Activity

Gateway

Cont..The goal of XPDL : is to provide a Lingua Franca for

the workflow domain allowing for : store and exchange the process diagram allow one tool to model a process diagra

m read the diagram and edit

What is Wf-XML?• is designed and implemented as an

extension to the OASIS Asynchronous Service Access Protocol (ASAP). ASAP provides a standardized way that a program can start and monitor a program that might take a long time to complete.

• Is derived from the Simple Workflow

Access Protocol (SWAP) which had it’s origin in early WfMC work.

• Uses the WfMC abstract specification that defines what needs to pass between workflows.

• Specifies how to use the XML language to make it happen.

• It provide interface between such a design tool and the PPM engine.

Wf-XML Specifics• Request - Response Model• Message Structure: Transport, Header, Body• Operations:

• CreateProcessInstance• GetProcessInstanceData• ChangeProcessInstanceState

• Also - Provides a Framework for Making Necessary Business Agreements

usage Wf-XML is an ideal way for a BPM engine

to invoke a process in another BPM engine, and to wait for it to completed.

the protocol doesnot automatically convert the Process Definition Format

It communicates the process definition to and from the client and server.  The process design tool and the process engine must be able to agree on a format to exchange.

Is it really a web service?

The common definition of a web service is that the messages that are to be exchanged are defined using WSDL. 

Since Wf-XML is defined using WSDL, we say that Wf-XML is a standard web service.

BPAF-Definition A business process that describes the day-to-day

activities and job duties an employee performs. (Job duties = processes)

A business process is a picture of workflow with a beginning, middle and end.

Work often crosses over departments. BPA requires cooperation and a willingness to assess the ownership of duties/tasks.

Business Process Analytics Format (BPAF) 

 Business Process Analytics

provides process participants and decision makers with insight about the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational processes.

Cont..

There are three reasons why we might want to measure different aspects of business processes:

1. To evaluate what has happened in the past,

2. to understand what is happening currently, or

3. to build an understanding of what might happen in the future.

Reasons to Use BPA Elimination of activities that do not add

value; Simplification of tasks and activities; Integration of jobs or job groups; Automation of task and activities

(technology).

Cont.. If no documented process model exists,

or if the scope of the process extends across multiple systems and process domains such a model may be inductively generated through Process Mining. Leading research on this topic is being conducted by Wil van der Aalst

MXML is an XML-based user interface markup

language first introduced by Macromedia in March 2004. Application developers use MXML in combination with ActionScript to develop rich Internet applications, with products .

References : http://www.wfmc.org/about-us/wfmc-

structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Workflow_Management_Coalition. https://www.google.com/url?

sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiHuczrg-vLAhXBORQKHdRQD5EQFggiMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oasis-open.org%2Fevents%2Fforum%2F2005%2Fslides%2FPyke.ppt&usg=AFQjCNFDC5asw-Hz9T1ZtXnaqEzXlM-p8g&bvm=bv.118353311,d.d24.

http://kswenson.workcast.org/2010/MIZU.KESW-BPAF-V1R2.pdf

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