IPM-EPDL: an XML-based executable process definition language

Abstract

The capability to quickly design and deploy a new business process has become critical for companies to succeed in the rapidly changing global market. Web services are considered to be the most promising technology that enables automatic execution of business processes. It has some limitations, however, such as lack support for organizational structure and role model, customized user interface, access authorization of data, and storing instance data. This paper introduces Integrated Process Management Executable Process Definition Language (IPM-EPDL), an XML-based executable process definition language. IPM-EPDL supports flexible specification of organizational structure and role model. It allows the user to design the interface of a business process activity according to the number of users as well as their preferences, browser type, and type of the form to be used for the activity. It also enables to specify the access authorization of data and to check the validity of the data. Finally, it can specify all business data and keep it throughout the entire process lifecycle. Such data can be used for checking the status of process instance and for various analyses. The paper discusses how a typical process definition must be extended to enable its execution while providing the above advantages. The paper describes how the IPM-EPDL execution engine provides these capabilities. The paper also demonstrates a prototype system along with an extended example to illustrate that the proposed language and process execution engine can support rapid deployment of a new business process that can be performed on various platforms even by a remote user. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.