Re: [ebxml-bp] ebBP 2/4/2005: Webber Questions (part 2 of 2)

["Monica J. Martin" <Monica.Martin@Sun.COM>]

>Webber: Monica,
>OK - I went back and found the EndsWhen / BeginsWhen section.
>
>Now I'm thinking this part - Lines 1195 to 1202 is misleading - I
>think we first need to state the principles of operation here:
>
>Current text: For endsWhen, in the care of a certification exam.  A
>registrant is allowed three attempts to pass an exam to achieve
>certification; otherwise the registrant fails. In an academic setting, a
>health care provider, i.e. the registrant, attempts the certification exam
>three times. For the first try, the registrant submits a certification
>request and engages in a registration step. The registrant request fails and
>is returned. The registrant increases insurance, retries and fails. For a
>third try, the registrant increases staff capacity, then retries. The
>registrant requests fails a third time. The registrant attempts to
>re-register but must start over again. This scenario may apply to other than
>health care, such as Amazon self-registration.
>
>Insert before this after line 1194:
>The beginsWhen expression MAY be used to:
>
>·         Link a semantic state (e.g. begins when "state" of
>"product-delivered" is reached)
>
>·         Serve as a semantic definition that MAY be used to define that
>state (e.g. "in the context of this BPSS, "product-delivered" is defined as
>the existence of both product-delivered date and delivery-signature)
>  
>
===========
mm1: Looking at Section 4.6.7.1, here's a try, David. You have to 
remember that we do not at this time render these as computable. They 
may be rendered computable by implementation (which you may have done?).

FROM:

 The beginsWhen expression MAY be used to:

·         Link a semantic state (e.g. begins when "state" of 
"product-delivered" is reached)

·         Serve as a semantic definition that MAY be used to define that 
state (e.g. "in the context of this BPSS, "product-delivered" is defined 
as the existence of both product-delivered date and delivery-signature)

For endsWhen, in the care of a certification exam. A registrant is 
allowed three attempts to pass an exam to achieve certification; 
otherwise the registrant fails. In an academic setting, a health care 
provider, i.e. the registrant, attempts the certification exam three 
times. For the first try, the registrant submits a certification request 
and engages in a registration step. The registrant request fails and is 
returned. The registrant increases insurance, retries and fails. For a 
third try, the registrant increases staff capacity, then retries. The 
registrant requests fails a third time. The registrant attempts to 
re-register but must start over again. This scenario may apply to other 
than health care, such as Amazon self-registration.......

A PreCondition indicates that the corresponding business activity MAY 
start only if the corresponding expressions are true. A PostCondition 
expresses a condition that MUST be true once the activity has been 
completed. For example, business Success is true (i.e. the status 
reported to the choreography is true) when the activity is completed.

TO:
 The beginsWhen or endsWhen expression MAY be used to:

·         Link a semantic state (For example, given the business 
collaboration definition, begins when or ends when may indicate when the 
"state" of "product-delivered" is reached.)

·         Serve as a semantic definition that MAY be used to define that 
state (e.g. "in the context of this BPSS, "product-delivered" is defined 
as the existence of both product-delivered date and delivery-signature)

An example use case may be a certification exam.  A certification exam 
is expected to start when (begins when) a health care provider 
registers.  A registrant is allowed three attempts to pass an exam to 
achieve certification; otherwise the registrant fails. In an academic 
setting, a health care provider, i.e. the registrant, may attempt the 
certification exam three times.  For the first try, the registrant 
submits a certification request and engages in a registration step. The 
registrant request fails and is returned. The registrant increases 
insurance, retries and fails. For a third try, the registrant increases 
staff capacity, then retries. The registrant request fails a third time. 
The registrant attempts to re-register but must start over again, i.e. 
the certification exam ended when (ends when) the third attempt failed. 
This scenario may apply to other than health care, such as Amazon 
self-registration......

A PreCondition indicates that the corresponding business activity MAY 
start only if the corresponding expressions are true. For example, a 
certification exam could not start unless a registration precondition 
exists. A PostCondition expresses a condition that MUST be true once the 
activity has been completed. For example, business Success is true (i.e. 
the status reported to the choreography is true) when the activity is 
completed. For example, a certifcation is closed only if the registrant 
passes or fails given the underlying criteria.

>Webber: o    and expression must evaluate to a simple true / false boolean
>
>An example of this would be:  beginsWhen="validOrderReceived OR
>backOrderFulfilled"
>
>The conditionals themselves will be variables that have been defined in the
>BPSS variables section.  And associative expression then relates the
>evaluation of the
>
>conditional.  In the case of the beginsWhen - this will normally reference
>an outcome from the preceeding BTA step.  In the case of an endsWhen - this
>will relate to
>
>current BTA step, and that BTA step will continue to iterate until the
>endWhens is fulfilled, or the BTA fails (matching one of the guard
>conditionals).
>
>So in the case described below the endsWhen is conditional on
>endsWhen="certificationPassedOK", and the guard conditional is "Fail" when
>"retries>2 AND NOT certificationPassedOK".
>
mm1: David, I would suggest you bring this suggestion to the TC as these 
elements are not described as computable. We have not discussed how they 
could be used with variables. If I remember correctly (and would 
encourage your comment), we specifically asked you to consider this as a 
v3.0 feature (i.e. rendering these as computable and any association 
with variables such as those using an external specification). Thanks.