The Object Management Group (OMG) is a computer industry standards consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a range of technologies.
The unified modeling language (UML) is a general-purpose visual modeling language that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system.
The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL), commonly known as BPEL, is an OASIS standard executable language for specifying actions within business processes with web services. Processes in BPEL export and import information by using web service interfaces exclusively.
Business process modeling (BPM) in business process management and systems engineering is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current business processes may be analyzed, improved, and automated. BPM is typically performed by business analysts, who provide expertise in the modeling discipline; by subject matter experts, who have specialized knowledge of the processes being modeled; or more commonly by a team comprising both. Alternatively, the process model can be derived directly from events' logs using process mining tools.
Business process automation (BPA), also known as business automation,distinguished from Business Process Management (BPM), is the technology-enabled automation of business processes. It can help a business in simplicity, to increase digital transformation, increase service quality, improve service delivery, or contain costs. BPA consists of integrating applications, restructuring labor resources, and using software applications throughout the organization. Robotic process automation is an emerging field within BPA.
A business rules engine is a software system that executes one or more business rules in a runtime production environment. The rules might come from legal regulation, company policy, or other sources. A business rule system enables these company policies and other operational decisions to be defined, tested, executed and maintained separately from application code.
A BRMS or business rule management system is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic, also referred to as business rules, includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a business process model.
The XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) is a format standardized by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) to interchange business process definitions between different workflow products, i.e. between different modeling tools and management suites. XPDL defines an XML schema for specifying the declarative part of workflow / business process.
YAWL is a workflow language based on workflow patterns. It is supported by a software system that includes an execution engine, a graphical editor and a worklist handler. It is available as open-source software under the LGPL license.
A workflow engine is a software application that manages business processes. It is a key component in workflow technology and typically makes use of a database server.
The Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM) is a standard definition of concepts used to express business process models, adopted by the OMG. Metamodels define concepts, relationships, and semantics for exchange of user models between different modeling tools. The exchange format is defined by XSD and XMI, a specification for transformation of OMG metamodels to XML. Pursuant to the OMG's policies, the metamodel is the result of an open process involving submissions by member organizations, following a Request for Proposal (RFP) issued in 2003. BPDM was adopted in initial form in July 2007, and finalized in July 2008.
Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) was a consortium formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems. The coalition was disbanded in 2019 and no longer exists.
Apache ODE is a software coded in Java as a workflow engine to manage business processes which have been expressed in the Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) via a website. It was made by the Apache Software Foundation and released in a stable format on March 23, 2018. The software principally communicates with one or more Web services, sending and receiving messages, manipulating data and handling exceptions (errors) as defined by any given process. The engine is capable of running both long and short living processes to coordinate all the services that make up a service or application (orchestration).
BPELscript is a language to specify BPEL processes. It provides a compact syntax inspired by scripting languages such as JavaScript and Ruby and a full coverage of all features provided by BPEL.
Business process management (BPM) is the discipline in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business processes is BPM. Processes can be structured and repeatable or unstructured and variable. Though not required, enabling technologies are often used with BPM.
An Executable Architecture (EA), in general, is the description of a system architecture in a formalnotation together with the tools that allow the automatic or semi-automatic generation of artifacts from that notation and which are used in the analysis, refinement, and/or the implementation of the architecture described.
Service choreography in business computing is a form of service composition in which the interaction protocol between several partner services is defined from a global perspective. The idea underlying the notion of service choreography can be summarised as follows:
"Dancers dance following a global scenario without a single point of control"
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is a visual modeling and design tool based on the OMG UML. The platform supports: the design and construction of software systems; modeling business processes; and modeling industry based domains. It is used by businesses and organizations to not only model the architecture of their systems, but to process the implementation of these models across the full application development life-cycle.
Imixs Workflow is an Open-Source-Project, providing technologies for building Business Process Management solutions. The project focus on human based workflows used to execute and control workflows in organisations and enterprises. In difference to task-oriented workflow engines, which focus on automated program flow control (tasks), Imixs Workflow is a representative of an event-based workflow engine. Here, the engine controls the status of a process instance within a defined state-diagram. By entering an event, the state of a process instance can be abandoned or changed. In human-centric workflow engines, events usually occur by an interaction of the actor with the system, for example by approving or rejecting a business transaction. They can also be triggered by scheduled events. An example of this is an escalation of an unfinished task.
