3.4 ebXML Business Processes

The electronic business process of ebXML is based around the execution of business processes.

A business process is roughly a business scenario about what happens, who the trading partners are, what the roles of the trading partners are, which documents the trading partners exchange, in what order the documents are exchanged and what information is in the documents (structure of the documents). In ebXML a Business Collaboration is a realisation of a Business Process.

The ebXML Business Process Specification Schema document [7] is well written and provides a very good view of ebXML Business Processes.

As mentioned before, ebXML has three different functional phases. Over the long run there will be Business Processes stored in the ebXML Registries. To get there, Business Processes first have to be modelled. ebXML based its modelling method on the UN/CEFACT Modelling Methodology (UMM) which is defined in the N090R9.1 specification (please check at the web site of UN/CEFACT for further details of UMM). UMM is a modelling methodology for business processes which describes what a business process is and what it contains. ebXML Business Process Specification Schema is modelled in UML (Unified Modelling Language ⁹) and converted to XML (see chapter 2.8.2 for infos on XML). It is also important to mention, that the ebXML Business Process Specifications do not specify the structure of Business Documents. Business Documents are composed from re-usable Business Information Objects and Business Information Objects are composed of re-usable Core Components.

To get from Business Processes to two Trading Partners doing business, ebXML envisioned the following process:

1. Business Process and Information Modelling.
2. ebXML Business Process Specification.
3. ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Collaboration Protocol Agreement.
4. Configuration of the Business Service Interface software (application at each trading partner which handles the ebXML documents) with the Collaboration Protocol Agreement.

Figure 3: ebXML Business Collaboration (Adapted from the Business Process Specification Schema document)

Figure 3 shows the ebXML Business Collaboration. ebXML Business Process Specification Schema defined the general Business Collaboration. Instances of Business Collaborations have to be worked out by companies, organisations but the class diagram, with associations, inheritance is given here. The Business Process Specification Schema [7] defines a business collaboration as follows:

Two or more business partners participate in the business collaboration through roles. The roles interact with each other through Business Transactions. The business transactions are sequenced relative to each other in a Choreography. Each Business Transaction consists of one or two predefined Business document flows. A Business Transaction may be additionally supported by one or more Business Signals.

The next chapters show how ebXML defines the Business Processes as Business Collaborations. The modelling is done in UML and converted to XML.

Footnotes

... Language⁹

http://www.uml.org