Workflow Management Coalition
Newsletter - December 1995
WfMC Unveils Standard Client Application Programming Interface
The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), the non-profit international
organization of workflow vendors, customers and analysts unveiled its
workflow application programming interface (API) for the support of
workflow client applications on November 20, 1995. The workflow API
provides a means of communication between workflow client applications
and workflow engines to give users increased flexibility in
implementing standards-based workflow systems such as insurance claims
or purchase order processing.
The Coalition received positive reactions from the media, user
organizations and industry analysts.
Chairman Industry Liaison
At the November meeting the Steering Committee approved a proposal to
have a Chairman of Industry Liaison. The purpose of this function is
to coordinate and synchronize the liaison between other industry
organizations, and the various Coalition committees, i.e. TC, Working
Groups, ERC and SC. Mike Grabert, was the first officer elected to
this position in November.
Meanwhile, Mike has joined another company, and election of a new
Chairman will follow soon.
Examples of the liaison with other industry groups, consortia and
standard groupings are: the Black Forest Group, Object Management
Group, and Document Management Alliance. These groups are supporting
the WFMC specifications.
The Chairman will report regularly to the Steering Committee, and will
cooperate with the Secretariat to address questions from Members.
New Vice-Chairs Elected
In November the Coalition's progress was shown by the election of
several other new positions. In addition, Sunil Sarin, XSoft, was
elected Steering Committee Vice-Chairman Americas.
The Vice-Chairmen for the various working groups are now:
- Working Group 1. Group A (Process Definition Interchange APIS)
and B (Process Definition Model) can now merge for work to continue.
Gerhard Wernke, SNI, was elected vice-chairman of this working group.
- Kathy Drennan, Recognition International, was elected vice-chair
of working group 2 (Client Application APIs).
- Kurt Ogris, CSE Systems, was elected vice-chairman of working
group 3 (Application Invocation Interface).
- Mike Anderson, ICL, was elected vice-chairman of working group 4
(Workflow Interoperability).
- David Bakin, Powersoft, was elected vice-chairman of working group
5 (Administration & Monitoring).
Election of WfMC Officers in Progress
Elections for the WFMC officers are taking place at the moment.
Nomination forms have been sent out and should be returned before
January 15, 1996. By the end of the day on January 17, the nominations
will be distributed to the membership with votes due by January 31.
The results of the election will be distributed at the February
meeting. At the February meeting, the newly elected Chairmen will
chair the various comittees.
Coalition to Issue Annual Handbook - Call for Papers
The External Relations Committee (ERC) is working on an exciting new
project: the publication of an Annual Handbook. The book will contain
information about workflow automation products, services and
companies, market information and comments from a variety of people
involved in workflow.
The publication will be extremely useful for all professionals and
companies within the workflow arena, including end-users, vendors,
analysts, universities, and resellers.
In order to measure the interest from the membership for contributing
to this publication, the Secretariat sent out a preliminary Call for
Papers. The high level of response is a sound basis for intended
cooperation with the publisher Wiley & Sons.
A more detailed Call for Papers with article guidelines is being
issued. Funding members will also be invited to submit a brief
company and product/service description for inclusion in the handbook.
Next Meetings Schedule:
The next meeting will be held in Orlando, FL on February 7-9, 1996
following the BIS/Giga conference there on February 4-7.
The Spring meeting which will be sponsored CSE Systems and TIMS
Technology will be held in Zurich, Switzerland on May 6-8, 1996.
Working group meetings: WG 1 will meet in Padderborn, Germany on
January 11 (sponsored by SNI); the other WGs will meet in Montpellier,
Vermont on January 16-18 (sponsored by National Life of Vermont).
After the May meeting, working groups will meet again in Toronto,
Canada on June 12-13 (sponsored by Workflow Solutions Group) following
Workflow Canada in Toronto on June 9-11.
Next meetings will be held in the US in August and in Europe in
November.
For further information or copies of Workflow Management Coalition
Publications, contact:
Workflow Management Coalition Office
Attn. Alfons Westgeest or Emmy Botterman
Avenue Marcel Thiry 204,1200 Brussels, Belgium;
Tel: +32 2 774 96 33. Fax: +32 2 774 96 90.
E-Mail:
100113.1555@compuserve.com
See the WfMC Home Page or contact one
of the Country Contacts
Last updated: Thu Mar 21 14:23:54 1996
by Austin Tate, AIAI, University of Edinburgh (a.tate@ed.ac.uk)