[wsbpel-uc] Proposed Definition of "Entity"

["Manglani, Rajesh" <RManglani@uc-council.org>]

Title: [wsbpel-uc] Proposed Definition of "Entity"

Team,

Based on the valuable input from the list members, here's an updated proposal for the definition of an "entity"

"An entity is any legal or functional component of an organization to include businesses,government agencies, divisions or departments within organizations,and roles within organizations such as buyer, seller. "

I would also like the following "clarification" to be added to the document.

"The definition of an entity used in this context is different from the UN/CEFACT definition of a business entity which is defined in the simple guide to UMM specification as "the subject of Business Collaboration Activities that have independent identity" or  a concept representing the data that is shared in the collaborative domain between two trading partners.Examples of UN/CEFACT business entities could be purchase orders, trade-items etc."

Notes
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1) I have kept the "legal" component in the definition because entities like subsidiaries, corporations are legal business entities and will figure prominently in the use cases need to be included in the definition. I know there were some opinions expressed regarding not getting into "legal" stuff.... but all this definition does is specify that any organization that is "legally" a part of another business can be thought of as an entity. That is the extent to which this defintion should go.

2) Same case with roles. As discussed in the examples in my previous emails, our definition needs to accomodate the use cases where entities represent roles as in a "buyer" entity and a "seller" entity participate in a business process.

This is all I have for now. I will discuss this in today's conference call

regards
-Rajesh Manglani