Staffware Joins BPM Interoperability Demonstration

Staffware Boosts BPM Interoperability with WfMC Demonstration

First Live Demonstration of WfMC Standards a Milestone for BPM Industry

New York, NY, USA. June 17, 2004.

Staffware, a global leader in Business Process Management (BPM) software, will take part in the first live demonstration of the Workflow Management Coalition's (WfMC) Wf-XML 2.0 web commerce protocol next week in San Francisco.

The live Wf-XML 2.0 demonstration of a business-to-business supply chain process at the BrainStorm BPM Conference in San Francisco on June 23 will also demonstrate Asynchronous Service Access Protocol (ASAP) interoperability as the workflow protocol is built upon OASIS ASAP.

Staffware CTO and WfMC chair, Jon Pyke, said the demonstration is an important milestone in the continuing development of interoperability standards across the BPM industry.

"Wf-XML 2.0 addresses the significant hurdles that companies have faced in attempting to optimise business processes across organisations using different BPM engines," Mr Pyke said.

"The web commerce demonstration will highlight the role of Wf-XML 2.0 and ASAP in enabling business process interoperability across some of the industry's most widely recognised BPM engines, including Staffware's iProcess Engine.

"We recognise that customers don't want to be forced into any one vendor's proprietary standards when making a BPM investment, and Staffware is helping to lead the development of standards with the WfMC which will benefit the entire industry."

ASAP is a web services protocol, which can be used to access a generic service that might take a long time to complete. Web services protocols allow a remote service to be accessed in a standard way. While existing protocols work best when the service can provide an answer quickly - within a minute or two at the longest — ASAP is useful when the answer might take longer, such as services which last from minutes to months in duration.

The service being invoked might be fully automated, a manual task which a person performs, or any mixture of the two. This capability to handle both automated and manual activities is what makes ASAP particularly suited for B2B and intra-organisational service request scenarios.

Wf-XML 2.0, developed by the WfMC with input from organisations like Staffware, Fujitsu Software Corporation and HandySoft extends ASAP to include BPM and workflow interchange capabilities. A business process engine is a special type of asynchronous service; it has the ability to be started, to involve people in that process, and to complete some time later. One BPM engine can be easily linked to another BPM engine using Wf-XML, and the protocol extends ASAP by including the ability to retrieve the process definition and monitor the current state of running processes.

More than 1000 observers, mostly IT users, have registered to watch the demonstration and be informed of the results. For more information or to sign up as a free online observer please see http://www.wfmc.org/standards/wfxml_demo.htm.

About the Workflow Management Coalition

The WfMC, founded in August 1993, is a non-profit, international organization of workflow vendors, users, analysts and university/research groups. The Coalition's mission is to promote and develop the use of workflow through the establishment of standards for software terminology, interoperability and connectivity between workflow products. Comprising over 300 members throughout the world, the Coalition is the primary standards body for this significant software market. The creation of the WfMC Standards Reference Model has proved its importance in other areas of technology, most notably the ISO Seven Layer reference model for computer communications.

About Staffware

Staffware is the leading Business Process Management specialist with 1,500 enterprise customers across the banking, insurance, telecommunications, utilities, general commercial, manufacturing, and government sectors. Staffware is headquartered in the UK, has offices in 17 countries and employs approximately 370 people. The company is profitable, debt-free, listed on the London Stock Exchange and is the leading global vendor focused exclusively on providing BPM solutions. According to the DTI R&D Scoreboard 2003, Staffware is a leader amongst software and services companies globally for its investment in R&D, with over 18.1% of sales invested in R&D compared with an average of 10.2%.

Staffware's BPM expertise has evolved over 15 years of automating and managing processes, so the interaction of people and processes has remained central to its philosophy. Unlike the majority of its competitors, it has a deep understanding and unique insight of the complex people-to-people, people-to-application and application-to-application interactions that make up business processes.

The Staffware Process Suite provides a complete set of tools to create, transform and streamline the internal and external processes and tasks of an organization. Staffware enables the creation of an Independent Process Layer that separates process from the underlying IT/data environment, facilitating the rapid development and change to an organization's processes. The Staffware Process Suite is an open and standards-based solution that ensures seamless integration and full interoperability with existing IT infrastructures and applications.

Contact

Antonia Gormley
Brands2Life
Tel: 020 7386 6200
Email: antonia.gormley@brands2life.com

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See other details in the news story: "Workflow Management Coalition Hosts ASAP and Wf-XML 2.0 Interoperability Demo." General references in XML-Based Workflow and Process Management Standards: XPDL, Wf-XML."

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The live Wf-XML 2.0 demonstration of a business-to-business supply chain process at the BrainStorm BPM Conference in San Francisco on June 23 will also demonstrate Asynchronous Service Access Protocol (ASAP) interoperability as the workflow protocol is built upon OASIS ASAP. Staffware CTO and WfMC chair, Jon Pyke, said the demonstration is an important milestone in the continuing development of interoperability standards across the BPM industry. "Wf-XML 2.0 addresses the significant hurdles that companies have faced in attempting to optimise business processes across organisations using different BPM engines," Mr Pyke said. "The web commerce demonstration will highlight the role of Wf-XML 2.0 and ASAP in enabling business process interoperability across some of the industry's most widely recognised BPM engines, including Staffware's iProcess Engine. "We recognise that customers don't want to be forced into any one vendor's proprietary standards when making a BPM investment, and Staffware is helping to lead the development of standards with the WfMC which will benefit the entire industry." ASAP is a web services protocol, which can be used to access a generic service that might take a long time to complete. Web services protocols allow a remote service to be accessed in a standard way. While existing protocols work best when the service can provide an answer quickly - within a minute or two at the longest — ASAP is useful when the answer might take longer, such as services which last from minutes to months in duration. The service being invoked might be fully automated, a manual task which a person performs, or any mixture of the two. This capability to handle both automated and manual activities is what makes ASAP particularly suited for B2B and intra-organisational service request scenarios. Wf-XML 2.0, developed by the WfMC with input from organisations like Staffware, Fujitsu Software Corporation and HandySoft extends ASAP to include BPM and workflow interchange capabilities. A business process engine is a special type of asynchronous service; it has the ability to be started, to involve people in that process, and to complete some time later. One BPM engine can be easily linked to another BPM engine using Wf-XML, and the protocol extends ASAP by including the ability to retrieve the process definition and monitor the current state of running processes. More than 1000 observers, mostly IT users, have registered to watch the demonstration and be informed of the results. For more information or to sign up as a free online observer please see http://www.wfmc.org/standards/wfxml_demo.htm. About the Workflow Management Coalition The WfMC, founded in August 1993, is a non-profit, international organization of workflow vendors, users, analysts and university/research groups. The Coalition's mission is to promote and develop the use of workflow through the establishment of standards for software terminology, interoperability and connectivity between workflow products. Comprising over 300 members throughout the world, the Coalition is the primary standards body for this significant software market. The creation of the WfMC Standards Reference Model has proved its importance in other areas of technology, most notably the ISO Seven Layer reference model for computer communications. About Staffware Staffware is the leading Business Process Management specialist with 1,500 enterprise customers across the banking, insurance, telecommunications, utilities, general commercial, manufacturing, and government sectors. Staffware is headquartered in the UK, has offices in 17 countries and employs approximately 370 people. The company is profitable, debt-free, listed on the London Stock Exchange and is the leading global vendor focused exclusively on providing BPM solutions. According to the DTI R&D Scoreboard 2003, Staffware is a leader amongst software and services companies globally for its investment in R&D, with over 18.1% of sales invested in R&D compared with an average of 10.2%. Staffware's BPM expertise has evolved over 15 years of automating and managing processes, so the interaction of people and processes has remained central to its philosophy. Unlike the majority of its competitors, it has a deep understanding and unique insight of the complex people-to-people, people-to-application and application-to-application interactions that make up business processes. The Staffware Process Suite provides a complete set of tools to create, transform and streamline the internal and external processes and tasks of an organization. Staffware enables the creation of an Independent Process Layer that separates process from the underlying IT/data environment, facilitating the rapid development and change to an organization's processes. The Staffware Process Suite is an open and standards-based solution that ensures seamless integration and full interoperability with existing IT infrastructures and applications. Contact Antonia Gormley Brands2Life Tel: 020 7386 6200 Email: antonia.gormley@brands2life.com Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See other details in the news story: "Workflow Management Coalition Hosts ASAP and Wf-XML 2.0 Interoperability Demo." General references in XML-Based Workflow and Process Management Standards: XPDL, Wf-XML."