XPDL

Draft

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Introduction

“The goal of XPDL is to store and exchange the process diagram, to allow one tool to model a process diagram, and another to read the diagram and edit, another to "run" the process model on an XPDL-compliant BPM engine, and so on. For this reason, XPDL is not an executable programming language like BPEL, but specifically a process design format that literally represents the "drawing" of the process definition.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 14:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC))

In the WfMC workflow reference model, XPEL relates to interface 1, defining exchange of process definition data between BPR tools, workflow systems and process definition repositories.

History

The basic concepts that underlie XPDL were formulated for the Workflow Process Definition Language (WPDL), published by the [ WfMC] in November 1998. Experience with WPDL led XPDL 1.0 in 2002. XPDL basically defined a new syntax using an XML schema.

See also: business process modeling, workflow, BPEL and BPMN

Relationship with BPMN and BPEL

As of 2009, “BPMN has become the de facto standard for graphical representation of business processes. Unfortunately, the early versions of the specification provided no serialization format for a BPMN diagram. This was still true of the last approved version, BPMN1.2. The only standards-based alternative for serialization has been XPDL2.1, which incorporated the graphics and attributes of BPMN into the specification and XML serialization. In addition, XPDL2.1 defined subsets of BPMN, referred to as Portability Conformance classes, with software tools (XSL transforms) to test XML documents for conformance” (Robert Shapiro. BPMN Process Interchange (retrieved June 24, 2010).

Links

Overviews

• XPDL (Wikipedia)
• Jean-Jacques Dubray's critical comments, retrieved June 2010.

Players

• Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)

Standards

• XPDL 2.1

Bibliography

• Shapiro, Robert M. (2006). XPDL 2.0: Integrating Process Interchange and BPMN, in Fischer, Layna (ed.), 2006 BPM and Workflow Handbook, Future Strategies Inc. PDF reprint