ebBP 6/27/2005: InformationDistribution,Notification Patterns and Performs (Roles)

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

We've received another set of questions from Cristiano Novelli regarding 
use of Notification and Information Distribution. Here is a short 
summary to address in tomorrow's call:

In the schema [1], the patterns Notification and InformationDistribution 
have a Requesting Business Activity.
The Performs requires two roles be defined.

Case Cristiano posed:

    * Order Status Report
    * Use Information Distribution (Notification may also be used and
      may be preferred) for BTA in a Business Collaboration.
    * Schema with Business TransactionActivity has a 'Performs" with
      minOccurs=2.
    * There is no Responding Business Activity

What this uncovered which is a subtle distinction:

    * There are still Requesting and Responding roles and two partners.
      Even, the Responding role that receives has work to do. Roles
      should be able to bind regardless of pattern. Both roles should be
      present regardless of pattern, and the binding should be role to role.
    * There is a Responding Business Activity. However, there may not be
      a Responding Business Document.
    * As we know in either case, a Receipt Acknowledgement (for the
      Request) may be sent to the Requesting role for the Requesting
      Business Docoument in the context of the Requesting Business Activity.
    *

Options to address question raised:

   1. Change Performs such as to add an attribute to indicate that the
      corresponding Role is linked to the receiving side of the BT.
   2. Add Responding Business Activity that is able to bind that Role
      regardless if any Business Document is sent. [2]

We will discuss this in tomorrow's call and decide how to integrate 
before publishing v2.0.1 for public review. This is good questions such 
as this one are being raised prior to the public review to ensure more 
margin for success. Which is a good thing......Talk to you Tuesday morning.


Reference:
[1] v2.0.1 schema: 
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ebxml-bp/document.php?document_id=13235
[1] May require more changes than option 1.