[Openflow-dev] Re: Workflow Standards vs PROforma

[Wayne W. <ww...@um...>]

Andrew po-jung Ho wrote:


>  Even if it is not based on an OMG standard, it _may_ still be a good o=
pen standard.
> (Whether or not it is "open" remains unknown.)
>=20
Pardon me for jumping in here.  But I think Bud has already=20
discovered that the workflow standards space has moved to=20
XML.  I think that is an excellent place to start with an=20
open source implementation.  The critical bits are the=20
inter-system inter operability that are referred to as=20
Interface 4.  The recently completed document is here:

http://www.aiim.org/wfmc/standards/docs/Wf-XML-1.0.pdf

Here is the purpose of this spec:

At a high level, these are the goals of this specification:=20
=B7 Support chained and nested workflows
=B7 Provide for both synchronous and asynchronous interactions=20
=B7 Remain implementation independent
=B7 Define a light, easy-to-implement protocol

  In order to achieve these goals, it is necessary to focus=20
only on the common aspects of workflow implementations,=20
which implies a specification based on data interchange. It=20
is further necessary to describe this data interchange in an=20
open, standards-based fashion that allows for the definition=20
of a structured, robust and customizable communications=20
format. For these reasons, this specification will utilize=20
the Extensible Markup Language (XML) [6] to define the=20
language with which workflow systems will interoperate.