Excellence in Practice Series
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Flagship annual publication from Workflow Management Coalition.
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2009 (June 2009)

Associated Sites
Future Strategies Inc
WfMC

Why are Workflow Standards Relevant?
Organizations making an investment in workflow software want to be sure that their investment is going to be protected. With standards users can have confidence that essential criteria will be met, hence reducing the risk involved. This clearly becomes of paramount importance when workflow systems are required to interoperate with those of other organizations whenever business processes are conducted across organizational boundaries.

Workflow Standards Framework
The Workflow Management Coalition has developed a framework for the establishment of workflow standards. This framework includes five categories of interoperability and communication standards that will allow multiple workflow products to coexist and interoperate within a user's environment. More technical details are available in the WfMC document  Workflow Reference Model. (PDF Doc of original specification).

Workflow Reference Model Diagram Click on diagram to view larger version

Workflow Reference Model In order to progress these objectives, the following WfMC working groups have been established: Working Groups   Objectives Reference Model & Glossary   Specify a framework for workflow systems, identifying their characteristics, functions and interfaces. Development of standard terminology for workflow systems. Process Definition Tools Interface (1)   Definition of a standard interface between process definition and modeling tools and the work flow engine(s). Workflow Client Application Interface (2)   Definition of APIs for client applications to request services from the workflow engine to control the progression of processes, activities and work-items. Invoked Application Interface (3)   A standard interface definition of APIs to allow the workflow engine to invoke a variety of applications, through common agent software. Workflow Interoperability Interface (4)   Definition of workflow interoperability models and the corresponding standards to support interworking. Administration & Monitoring Tools Interface (5)   The definition of monitoring and control functions. Conformance   To develop the Coalition's policy on product conformance against its specifications and agree an approach to vendor certification.

Public documents relating to these interfaces can be found at WfMC
 

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