[ebxml-cppa] Re: Notes from BPSS/CPPA conference call

[Arvola Chan <arvola@tibco.com>]

David and Hima:

I am not sure about the equation

    Action = Process Specification Name + Binary Collaboration Activity +
Activity Name

in David's notes. In BPSS, we have BinaryCollaboration and
CollaborationActivity elements, but not a "Binary Collaboration Activity"
element.

In the simplest case where a BinaryCollaboration makes use of a
BusinessTransactionActivity that references a BusinessTransaction, I would
interpret the above equation to mean

    Action = ProcessSpecification name + BinaryCollaboration name +
BusinessTransactionActivity name + Requesting(/Responding)BusinessActivity
name

It would not be sufficient to use only the BinaryCollaboration name or only
the BusinessTransactionActivity name because (a) a BinaryCollaboration may
contain multiple BusinessTransactionActivities, and (b) the 1.0 spec
indicates that the name of a BusinessTransactionActivity "defines the name
of the activity uniquely within the binary collaboration" (see section
7.1.6). In other words, multiple BinaryCollaborations may have
BusinessTransactionActivities with the same name.

In a slightly more complex scenario where a BinaryCollaboration makes use of
a CollaborationActivity which in turn references another BinaryCollaboration
that makes use of a BusinessTransactionActivity, I would suggest the
following formula:

    Action = ProcessSpecification name + (top level) BinaryCollaboration
name + CollaborationActivity name + BusinessTransactionActivity (under
nested BinaryCollaboration) name + Requesting(/Responding)Activity name

I don't think it is necessary to include the nested BinaryCollaboration name
because it is uniquely determined by the CollaborationActivity name.
Essentially, for each additional level of recursion, I would add an extra
CollaborationActivity name.

Consider the following example (obtained from ebbpss.xml published with the
1.0 spec and also attached here but with a slight modification to provide
names for the RequestingBusinssActivity and RespondingBusinessActivity for
the BusinessTransaction named "Process Credit Payment") involving the
compound BinaryCollaboration named "Credit Charge" that makes use of a
CollaborationActivity named "Credit Payment". The latter references a nested
BinaryCollaboration also named "Credit Payment" which makes use of a
BusinessTransactionActivity named "Process Credit Payment". The hierarchical
name for the RequestingBusinessActivity named "Credit Payment Request"
should be:

    ProcessSpecification name: Simple
    (top level) BinaryCollaboration name: Credit Charge
    CollaborationActivity name: Credit Payment
    BusinessTransactionActivity name: Process Credit Payment
    RequestingBusinessActivity name: Credit Payment Request

Hima:

Have you had a chance to work out an XPath example? I don't quite understand
the statement: "Use xpath semantics to uniquely identify the requesting
business activity and responding businss activity".

In the BPSS schema definition, RequestingBusinessActivity is not a
descendant of BinaryCollaboration, I can't figure out how to write an XPath
expression that would uniquely identify the RequestingBusinessActivity while
at the same time convey the hierarchical information described above.

Regards,
-Arvola

-----Original Message-----
From: David Smiley <dsmiley@mercator.com>
To: 'ebtwg-bps@lists.ebtwg.org' <ebtwg-bps@lists.ebtwg.org>;
ebxml-cppa@lists.oasis-open.org <ebxml-cppa@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 2:16 PM
Subject: Notes from BPSS/CPPA conference call


>See attached.
>
>David Smiley
>Director of Standards
>Mercator Software
>540.338.3355
>