Dubray 9/1/2004: Formal/Informal Comment to BPML for BPMN

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

JJ, just before you joined the call Monday, the team discussed we tailor 
our BPMN submission (not in substance but in a form to give to BPMI for 
the upcoming member/board meetings). I've provided a short paragraph to 
do so to include with your diagram. I've asked about a few diagram 
updates and given all the references (for our team only). Can you and 
the team review and see if this fits with your desires? And if so we can 
submit with the updated diagram. Thank you.

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Summary:
This is an initial proposal for a few BPMN extensions to represent the choreography of business collaborations. Here is an example (Process PO collaboration).

In this proposal, we show:

·         Connect a private process to the collaboration notation. This shows the collaboration and private views. The small circle on each side of the BTA represent an endpoint. The private process connects to these end points (not fully represented here).

o        The double line activity represents a business transaction.

o        The dashed line represents the direction (initiating to responder), the response flow is not indicating. When two flows cross the activity  (e.g. Cancel) it means that both parties can initiate that transaction.

o        Optionally, we can represent the message flow ( PO / Ack PO).

·         A gateway can represent, for example, forks and joins. It can also enable activities such as the Change and Cancel PO, until a timeout occurs. That gateway does not exist in the private process.

Future considerations/work:

·         How this notation represents a fully specified business collaboration

·         How this notation could effectively create a unified display that represents several emerging business process standards, such as ebBP, WS-CDL and WS-BPEL.

Notes:

·         The mapping between the Business Service Interface and private processes is likely implicit in this visualization. 

·         This diagram only provides a brief example (is not complete).

·         Note that the semantic of a fork gateway in a collaboration means that the BTA is enabled, not that it is necessarily executed.

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Update to .gif (for Dubray):

·         Correct the lines in and out of Cancel PO so arrows are shown.

·         Consider adding a symbol with a double line box that represents a BTA.

·         Decide if we actually show lack of / need for signals.

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Team references (ebBP only):
Initial posting and graphic found at:  http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-bp/200408/msg00038.html

My original posting at: http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-bp/200408/msg00042.html

Dale's initial comments: http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-bp/200408/msg00041.html

ebBP Meeting notes posted: http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-bp/200408/msg00044.html

Updated comments at: http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-bp/200408/msg00048.html


JJ Dubray, Attachmate, August 2004