XPDL4BPMN User Group

Over the past few years, workflow patterns have become a touchstone of workflow standards and products. The Workflow Patterns initiative is a joint effort of Eindhoven University of Technology (led by Professor Wil van der Aalst) and Queensland University of Technology (led by Professor Arthur ter Hofstede) which started in 1999. The aim of this initiative is to provide a conceptual basis for process technology. In particular, the research provides a thorough examination of the various perspectives (control flow, data, resource, and exception handling) that need to be supported by a workflow language or a business process modelling language. This session presents how these workflow patterns, as well as dataflow patterns, can be modeled using BPMN 2.0. Also discussed will be the advantages of using BPMN 2.0 when modeling these patterns. Further, we will focus on specific constructs in BPMN 2.0 that let the users extend the workflow patterns if required. Our initial intent is to target the various control flow patterns.

Presented by the chief architects of the standard, this session will present the advances and additions to the 2.2 release of XPDL, including support for the graphical extensions to process modeling contained in BPMN2.0. Explained will be how the BPMN specification addresses four different areas of modeling, referred to as Process Modeling, Process Execution, BPEL Process Execution, and Choreography Modeling, as well as the consequences for this with BPMN compliant and the accommodations offered through XPDL. This session will focus on Process Modeling of the four areas of BPMN, and the sub-classes introduced with XPDL 2.2 to support process interchange between tools.

This session provides an overview of business process simulation, the types of information required to define a business process scenario for the purpose of simulation, and a proposed standard for defining simulation scenarios that is compatible with the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN and XML Process Definition Language (XPDL). The article also describes how a RESTful web services API can be developed to support the standard. By providing a standard interchange format and/or a standard API, various artifacts currently available in the event logs of BPM systems could be used to generate baseline simulation scenarios useful in operational decision making and addressing near term processing issues, as well as long term process design.

This session provides a high-level introduction to new features in processes and interaction diagrams in the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) Version 2.0. BPMN 2.0 expands the capabilities of BPMN 1.x Process diagrams, and adds Choreography diagrams and Conversations to BPMN 1.x Collaborations for business interaction modeling. Half of the session will cover new elements in Process diagrams, including noninterrupting Events and Event Sub-Processes. The other half will cover new capabilities for modeling interactions, including the use of interactive Processes with Collaborations.