Conference call today 866-897-2934 room *6232329*

[Keith Swenson <KSwenson@us.fujitsu.com>]

ASAP TC Members

 

We will be holding our conference call again today at the normal time (in about an hour):

    Pacific: 10am

    Eastern: 1pm

    GMT: 6pm

 

call in number: 866-897-2934,  international: 205-354-0293

room number   *6232329*

 

Status Report

 

• The WfMC working group 4 (WfXML) had a good meeting last week in New York. 
• The progress that ASAP TC has made has been reported there. 
• The WfMC has made progress in arrangements for a interoperability demonstration.  Brainstorm group is happy to provide the venu for the event at the Berlingame Conference in June.  We have been promised a plenary track session to explain the situation and then demonstrate the interaction, and finally to announce the results of who participated successfully.
• Discussion was that this is more like a "test" than a "demo".  We have been using the two terms interchangeably.
• A signup form has been provided on the web for "Observers" to sign up, we had 57 signed up as of last week, some quite important.  Effort still continuing to get all the right government representatives and analysts.   http://www.wfmc.org/standards/wfxml_demo.htm
• A demo client has been developed by Jeff Cohen.  He read the XSD and WSDL into a .Net class generator, and succeeded in producing both a simple server as well as a web based client UI that allows one to call on an ASAP service.  The trickiest part is the context and result data.  When I tried out the client last week the only thing left was providing a solution for variable context data structures, that should be available soon.  The great thing about a .Net implementation is that if we have open-source implementations, and Java implementations, we can clearly show interoperability across those camps.
• John Fuller has made progress on the open source implementaiton.  The next step is to actually demonstrate Jeff's client talking to John's server. 
• WfMC Workflow Handbook 2004 has been published, and one chapter is on the subject of "ASAP and WfXML Cookbook" as a guide to help people with process engines to implement these protocols.
• There is a TREMENDOUS increase in interest now that we are visible with the demonstration in June.
• Moshe Silverstein has lost his OASIS membership (due to leaving iWay) and can no longer participate as secretary.  Anyone interested in getting some recognition for the work they are already putting into the group?  The position is available.  Moshe did still agree to help put together a participant brochure.

Action Items

• Need to refresh the specification document.  The progress on implementations have fixed some errors in the XSD and WSDL files.  These need to be folder in.  Also, we made a motion in December to make the spec publicly available, and that never happened due to reorganization of the leadership.  I have stalled on following through because I want to be sure I have updated the document in response to all the input we have received.
• Participant brochure.  Now is the time to canvas the industry and make sure that everyone is invited to the demonstration.  I don't want anyone coming to us later asking why we kept the demonstration a secret.  A participant brochure will help us do this because it will lay out the expectations in terms of responsibilities and benefits.  I am sure I can get this posted on the WfMC website when it is ready -- makes distribution easier.
• Demo scenario.  Jon Pyke of Staffware committed to updating an earlier WfMC interoperability scenario to include ASAP and WfXML 2.0 specific details for use in this demonstration.  Justin Brunt is likely to be the person who follows through on this.  I had some discussions with him last week in New York, and he is keen to get started.
• Web Conferences - Brainstorm has offered to run a couple of web seminars in the coming weeks to help educate those interested in what the protocol is all about.  We will need so people to help present at those sessions.  It is all part of building up the hype before the event in order to assure that best level of participation.
• Press release. The WfMC external relations committee want to make a press release announcing the event and to generate interest in it.
• Get test client on-line.  I am trying to set up a computer here at Fujitsu to expose the test client to the Internet for general use, but as usual there are difficulties.  I will certainly have this on line before June, but, if anyone has a system with IIS accessible from the Internet, the client application is easy to install and does not take many resources.  It is an opportunity to show that your organization is playing a key role, without having to do much work!  Let me know if you would like to host the test client.
• Early interop tests - as other systems become available we want to start testing early -- before June.  Let's start coordinating this.

Hope to hear from you all at 10am.

Keith D Swenson, kswenson@fsw.fujitsu.com
Fujitsu Software Corporation
1250 E. Arques Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085
(408) 746-6276   mobile: (408) 859-1005