Workflow Management Coalition

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The Workflow Management Coalition ( WfMC ) is an association of more than 300 manufacturers, users, consultants and scientists in the field of workflow management .

Goals and purpose

The aim of the WfMC is to promote the use of workflow management systems (WfMS) by creating standards that are intended to give users investment security.

History and WfMC standards

Development of important BPM standards

The WfMC was founded in 1993. The first work dealt with the definition of workflow management, accompanied by a glossary in English.

In 1995 the first specification, the workflow reference model, was released. It describes the components of a WMS and the interfaces between them, a total of five in number.

In 1997, work began on the Wf-XML specification, which is now version 2.0 with a SOAP- based web service interface. It describes how a workflow engine can instruct another workflow engine to continue the process instance and how the return takes place.

In 2002, the first version of the first internationally accepted interface was released. It now has almost 100 implementations. This is the XML Process Definition Language (XPDL). It describes the entities and their properties of a process to be executed by a workflow engine and how these parameters are stored in an XML structure.

In 2008, the draft specification Business Process Analytics Format (BPAF) was published for review. This specification describes the XML format for storing information about a process event that occurs during the execution of a process instance, e.g. B. Forwarding from one activity to the next, timeout, escalation, repetition, delegation, resubmission, etc. The standard will better support the work of BPM analysts. Because on the basis of the uniform format, manufacturers of business intelligence should provide tools for the evaluation.

In 2010, in addition to its definition of BPM , the WfMC published another one with the acronym ACM, which stands for Adaptive Case Management. This term was discussed by BPM experts at a WfMC meeting in Maidenhead in November 2009 and presented in detail in an anthology of 12 articles by these experts. Since the beginning of 2009 it has been determined by various analysts that the majority of the processing takes place within unpredictable, knowledge-based processes. Mastering these processes on the basis of adaptive concepts is the task of the next few years. On the one hand, adaptive is understood to mean the behavior of the clerks themselves who carry out the next actions on the basis of their experience. On the other hand, there will be functions that record the behavior of the user and make appropriate suggestions to the clerk next time. If he selects a suggestion, its relevance is increased, the other suggestions are reduced. In this way, the system adapts to the behavior of the clerk.

Alternative process execution languages

For a long time, the XPDL was the exchange model for the various workflow tools, from modeling to simulation tools and the workflow engine. As of version 2.0, the graphic Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) was also supported. A competitor of the XPDL is the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). This is primarily used by workflow engines for orchestrating web services, i.e. computer programs without human interaction. XPDL, on the other hand, is used by workflow engines that primarily control tasks that are performed by humans.

With version 2.0 of the BPMN a further process execution language is added. Whereas XPDL previously replaced the interoperability of the graphic models with other tools, the new BPMN 2.0 now offers the storage structure in XML format, including a part that can be executed by a workflow engine.

Individual evidence

  1. Workflow Reference Model of the WfMC
  2. ^ Wf-XML specification of the WfMC
  3. List of products with an XPDL implementation
  4. XPDL specification of the WfMC
  5. BPM, GPM, BAM, BPMN, BPEL, XPDL, EABPM, CMPM ... , Dr. Martin Bartonitz, 2nd continuation of articles on standards in business process management
  6. BPAF specification of the WfMC
  7. Definition of ACM of the WfMC ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.xpdl.org
  8. Mastering the Unpredictable: How Adaptive Case Management Will Revolutionize the Way That Knowledge Workers Get Things Done , ISBN 0929652126 , edited by Keith D. Swenson, WfMC Technical Committee Chairman, with a foreword by Connie More, BPM expert at Forrester Research
  9. WfMC's masterminds proclaimed the next BPM revolution with Adaptive Case Management in Maidenhead at the end of 2009 ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Dr. Martin Bartonitz, article on the latest developments in the BPM environment  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.saperionblog.com
  10. Martin Bartonitz: Business process modeling: BPMN continues to advance! At the expense of BPEL and XPDL? It remains exciting ... ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.saperionblog.com

Web links