Workflow Management Coalition - Press Release - 26-Feb-96
Workflow Management Coalition Advances Workflow Interoperability and
Business Process Definition Interfaces
Microsoft MAPI Workflow Framework To Be One of the First
Implementations of the Coalition's Workflow Interoperability
Specification
BRUSSELS, Belgium (February 26, 1996) --
The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), the non-profit international
organization of workflow vendors, customers and consultants today
announced details of its Workflow Interoperability (Interface 4) and
BPR Definition (Interface 1) specifications. Both specifications are
aimed at increasing the value and decreasing the risks for customers
implementing workflow solutions.
WfMC's Workflow Interoperability interface is designed to
enable two or more workflow products to exchange and process work. By
mapping into a variety of transportation mechanisms or communication
protocols such as electronic mail, WWW, EDI, remote procedure calls
(RPCs) or object request brokers (ORBs), the specification will enable
workflow products to have a user-selectable vehicle for
interoperability.
"Increasingly, corporations are going to need different
workflow products to serve different needs and applications," said
Ronni Marshak, vice president of the Patricia Seybold Group and editor
in chief of Seybold's Workgroup Computing Report. "Interoperability
will be key to successful collaboration between customers and
applications."
Microsoft's MAPI Workflow Framework
In this context, Microsoft (a funding member of WfMC) and WfMC
mutually agreed to align the interoperability objectives of
Microsoft's Messaging Application Programming Interface Workflow
Framework (MAPI-WF) and Interface 4. The results will lead to an
implementation independent model of workflow interoperability where
MAPI-WF is one of the first implementations of Interface 4. In
addition, the Coalition is continuing its work in this area to define
mappings to other transport mechanisms in line with its policy of
enabling the widest applicability of its specifications.
Business Process Definition Interface Specification Draft Presented
WfMC also announced that it has presented an initial working
draft of its Business Process Definition (Interface 1) specification
for the analysis, modeling and description of business process
workflows. Both U.S. and European workflow vendors are initially
endorsing the Interface 1 specification.
Workflow vendors offer a variety of tools for the development
of business processes. WfMC's process definition import/export
interface provides a common interchange format for a large number of
information types including:
- process start and termination conditions;
- identification of activities within the process, including
associated tools and case data;
- identification of case types and access paths;
- definition of transition conditions and flow rules; and
- information for resource allocation decisions.
"Our Business Process Definition interface is designed to
ensure that companies developing multi-vendor workflow systems can
develop their business processes with less risk," said Gerhard Wernke,
vice chairman of the Coalition's working group on the process
definition interface and product manager at Siemens Nixdorf
Informationssysteme -- a Coalition member.
About the Workflow Management Coalition
Founded in 1993, the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is a
non-profit, international organization of workflow vendors, customers
and consultants. The Coalition's mission is to promote the use of
workflow through the establishment of standards for software
terminology, interoperability and connectivity between workflow
products.
Consisting of more than 175 members in 25 countries, the
Coalition has quickly become established as the primary standards body
for this rapidly expanding software market. In November 1995, the
Coalition published its workflow application programming interface
(Interface 2) specification designed to give users increased
flexibility in implementing standards-based workflow systems.
For further information contact:
Contact: Attn. Beth Johnson, Phase Two Strategies (beth_johnson@p2pr.com or tel:
415/772-8419) or Emmy Botterman, WfMC (100113.1555@compuserve.com
or tel: +32 2 774-9633).
Workflow Management Coalition Office
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
Or contact one of the Country
Contacts
WfMC Home Page
Last updated: Fri Mar 1 13:51:51 1996
by Austin Tate, AIAI (A.Tate@ed.ac.uk)