The Workflow Management Coalition has now developed a Workflow Reference Model, an infrastructure on which it will base the standards governing the interoperability and co-existence of workflow products across the enterprise, and with external applications. The proposed standards fall into five categories. Process definition import and export will outline a command set of process definition […]
The Workflow Management Coalition has now developed a Workflow Reference Model, an infrastructure on which it will base the standards governing the interoperability and co-existence of workflow products across the enterprise, and with external applications. The proposed standards fall into five categories. Process definition import and export will outline a command set of process definition parameters, which are laid down by the tools that developers or end-users use to define a workflow. Process interoperability standards will enable compliant workflow products to co-exist and share responsibility for managing a workflow. Tool invocation standards will provide for the initiation of an external tool such as electronic mail. A workflow application programming interface will present the work needed to be done by a process or end-user in a standard way. Finally, Status and Management standards will define ways of collecting and storing some key audit-based data about a workflow, and its efficiency. The Coalition, set up in September last year, now boasts 71 members, including Hewlett-Packard Co, Microsoft Corp, Digital Equipment Corp and Excalibur Technologies Inc.
