OASIS Call for Participation in BPEL4People
The full CFP follows the announcement from OASIS below. I'll be watching from the sidelines this time.
Some clarifications:
- WS-HumanTask has no dependency on BPEL. BPEL simply consumes WS-HumanTask
- BPEL4People focuses on System to Human (S2H) and Human to System (H2S) interactions. Human to Human (H2H) is considered out of scope - these types of interactions cannot be supported with a language such as BPEL. (None of the BPM languages are actually capable of this - see Keith Harrison-Broninski's work on Human Interaction Management for more on this topic).
- The last time I looked at it, WS-HumanTask consisted of two contracts:
I'll comment on this from time to time in the future. In the meantime here is the CFP and information about signing up.
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A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical Committee has been proposed by the members of
OASIS listed below. The proposal, below, meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process [a]. The TC name, statement of purpose, scope, list of deliverables,
audience, and language specified in the proposal will constitute the TC's official charter. Submissions of technology for consideration by the TC, and the
beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting.
This TC will operate under our 2005 IPR Policy [b]. The eligibility
requirements for becoming a participant in the TC at the first meeting (see
details below) are that:
(a) you must be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an individual member of OASIS;
(b) the OASIS member must sign the OASIS membership agreement [c];
(c) you must notify the TC chair of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting, which members may do by using the "Join this TC" button on the TC's public page at [d]; and
(d) you must attend the first meeting of the TC, at the time and date fixed below.
Of course, participants also may join the TC at a later time. OASIS and the TC welcomes all interested parties.
Non-OASIS members who wish to participate may contact us about joining OASIS [c]. In addition, the public may access the information resources maintained for each TC: a mail list archive, document repository and public comments facility, which will be linked from the TC's public home page at [d].
[a] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php
[b] http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php
[c] See http://www.oasis-open.org/join/
[d] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=bpel4people
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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
OASIS WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) TC
===========
1a. Name (and abbreviation) of the Technical Committee
OASIS WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical Committee
1b. Statement of Purpose
The purpose of the WS-BPEL Extension for People (BPEL4People) Technical
Committee (TC) is to define (1) extensions to the OASIS WS-BPEL 2.0
Standard to enable human interactions and (2) a model of human
interactions that are service-enabled. This work will be carried out
through continued refinement of the BPEL4People and WS-HumanTask
specifications (see section References) to be submitted to the TC as
referenced later in this charter.
1c. Scope of Work
The TC will accept as input Version 1.0 of the BPEL4People
specification, and Version 1.0 of the WS-HumanTask specification as
published by Adobe, Active Endpoints, BEA, IBM, Oracle and SAP AG
(see section References).
Other contributions and changes to the input documents will be
accepted for consideration without any prejudice or restrictions and
evaluated based on technical merit in so far as they conform to this
charter. OASIS members with extensive experience and knowledge in
related areas are particularly invited to participate.
This work will focus on:
* Defining the specification of a WS-BPEL extension enabling the
definition of human interactions ("human tasks") as part of a WS-BPEL
process.
* Defining the specification of a model enabling the definition of
human tasks that are exposed as Web services
* Defining a programming interface enabling human task client
applications to work with human tasks
WS-BPEL Extension (BPEL4People Specification)
The WS-BPEL Extension Specification will define the following:
* Concept of people activity
* Composition model for human tasks and processes supporting at least
the following:
o Inline human tasks in one people activity of a WS-BPEL process,
without re-use
o Inline human tasks in a WS-BPEL process for re-use in multiple
people activities
o Standalone human tasks for re-use in multiple WS-BPEL
processes. The life-cycle of processes and human tasks is tightly
coupled using the coordination protocol implemented in a vendor
specific manner
o Standalone human tasks for re-use in multiple WS-BPEL
processes. The life-cycle of processes and human tasks is tightly
coupled using the coordination protocol and protocol service
standardized by WS-HumanTask
o Standalone human tasks, without using a particular coordination
protocol, callable using plain Web services means, for re-use between
WS-BPEL processes (invokes) and other Web services clients
* Concept of inline human tasks within a people activity and within a
WS-BPEL process. Inline human tasks within a WS-BPEL process can be
reused by different people activities within that process
* Allow people activity to reference a standalone human task
(introduced in WS-HumanTask)
* Concept of people activity context and mechanism to access the
context from the people activity definition and from elsewhere in the
enclosing scope
* Semantics of people activity states and lifecycle
o States and basic operations for people activities aligned with
the corresponding states and operations of standalone human tasks
* Concept of generic human roles for processes
* Definition of process specific people assignments
* Mechanism to use logical people groups in WS-BPEL assignments
* Support for time-based conditions on people activities, e.g.
deferred activation of a human task
* Support of specific interaction patterns
o Four-eyes principle (a.k.a. separation of duties)
* Enablement of human tasks to access context information from the
surrounding process including previous people activities and the
corresponding human tasks.
* Extension mechanism
* Ad-hoc Attachments
Human Task Enablement (WS-HumanTask Specification)
The WS-Human Task Specification will define the following:
* Concept of human tasks (i.e. tasks and notifications) as an
explicit entity independent from any process definition
* Concept of human task context and mechanism to access the context
from the task definition
* Concept of generic human roles for human tasks
* Concept of logical people groups as an abstraction for assigned
people used to hide access to organizational directories
* Definition of people assignments
* Data types representing individuals associated with human tasks
* Semantics of task states and task lifecycle
* Basic operations (API) for client application interactions with
human tasks
* Coordination protocol for processes (or other applications)
interacting with human tasks
* Handling of deadlines including escalation
* Support of specific interaction patterns
o Nomination
o Delegation
o Escalation
* Extension mechanism
Potential additional features
In addition to the specification features described above, the TC may
explore the inclusion of the following features and topics, providing
that the technical approach chosen does not contradict the scope
described above:
* Single user screen flow (chained execution)
* Workflow patterns commonly encountered in document-centric and
people-centric workflows including:
o Sequential approval through a management chain
o Parallel approval and voting
o Approval management, group vote
o Pushback
o RequestInfo
* Basic operations (API) for client application interactions with WS-
BPEL processes (e.g. adding or deleting attachments)
Out of Scope
The following is a non-exhaustive list. It is provided only for the
sake of clarity. If some function, mechanism or feature is not
mentioned here, and is not mentioned in the Scope of Work section
either, then it will be deemed to be out of scope.
The following items are specifically out of scope of the work of the TC:
* Authorization definitions
* Deployment
* Monitoring
* Organizational directories (e.g., Human Resources)
o Definition of such directories
o Specific mechanisms (including protocols) to query such
directories
* Task execution rendering and definition of user interface elements
1d. Deliverables
The TC has the following set of deliverables:
* A revised BPEL4People specification and associated schema. A
Committee Specification is targeted for completion within 18 months
of the first TC meeting.
* A revised WS-HumanTask specification with associated schema. A
Committee Specification is targeted for completion within 18 months
of the first TC meeting.
These specifications will reflect refinements, corrections or
material technological improvements with respect to the input
documents and in accordance with this charter.
Maintenance
Once the TC has completed work on a deliverable and it has become an
OASIS Standard, the TC will enter "maintenance mode" for the
deliverable.
The purpose of maintenance mode is to provide minor revisions to
previously adopted deliverables to clarify ambiguities,
inconsistencies and obvious errors. Maintenance mode is not intended
to enhance a deliverable or to extend its functionality.
The TC will collect issues raised against the deliverables and
periodically process those issues. Issues that request or require new
or enhanced functionality shall be marked as enhancement requests and
set aside. Issues that result in the clarification or correction of
the deliverables shall be processed. The TC shall maintain a list of
these adopted clarifications and shall periodically create a new
minor revision of the deliverables including these updates.
Periodically, but at least once a year, the TC shall produce and vote
upon a new minor revision of the deliverables.
1e. IPR Mode
This TC will operate under the "RF (Royalty Free) on Limited Terms"
IPR mode as defined in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
Policy.
1f. Anticipated Audience
The anticipated audience for the documents produced by this TC includes:
* Software vendors supporting WS-BPEL 2.0.
* Software vendors offering products to support human-centric processes.
* Software developers, architects and other roles involved with
design, development, deployment and maintenance of WS-BPEL
applications and human-centric processes.
1g. TC Language
TC business will be conducted in English.
2.Required Non-Normative Information
2a. Similar or Related Work
The BPEL4People specification and the WS-HumanTask specification may
have dependencies on different technologies, such as
* BPEL4People: WS-HumanTask, WS-BPEL, WSDL, XPath, and XML Schema
* WS-HumanTask: WSDL, XML Schema, XPath, WS-Addressing, WS-
Coordination, WS-Policy
The TC will decide which version of these specifications will be used
in their final work.
Liaisons will be established with other OASIS Technical Committees as
determined appropriate by the members of the Technical Committee as
work proceeds.
2b. Date, Time and Location of First Meeting
Date: March 5, 2008
Time: 11:00 EDT
Duration: 2 hours
Mode: Teleconference
Telephone: Dial-in TBD
Sponsor: Oracle
2c. Projected Meeting Schedule
It is anticipated that the BPEL4People TC will regularly meet via
teleconference (e.g. weekly or bi-weekly) at a time determined by the
TC members during the TC's first meeting.
It is anticipated that the BPEL4People TC will regularly meet face to
face, every quarter if needed, at a time and location to be
determined by the TC members.
2d. TC Supporters
The following eligible individuals are in support of this proposal:
* Ashish Agrawal, Adobe, ashish@adobe.com
* Mike Amend, BEA, mamend@bea.com
* Chris Keller, Active Endpoints, chris.keller@active-endpoints.com
* Ed Cobb, BEA, ecobb@bea.com
* Dave Ings, IBM, ings@ca.ibm.com
* Matthias Kloppmann, IBM, matthias-kloppmann@de.ibm.com
* Dieter Koenig, IBM, dieterkoenig@de.ibm.com
* Frank Leymann, IBM, Frank.Leymann@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
* Jeff Mischkinsky, Oracle, jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com
* Gerhard Pfau, IBM, GPFAU@de.ibm.com
* Karsten Ploesser, SAP, karsten.ploesser@sap.com
* Alan Rickayzen, SAP, alan.rickayzen@sap.com
* Michael Rowley, BEA, mrowley@bea.com
* Ron Ten-Hove, SUN, ronald.ten-hove@Sun.COM
* Ivana Trickovic, SAP, ivana.trickovic@sap.com
* Claus von Riegen, SAP, claus.von.riegen@sap.com
* Vicki Shipkowitz, SAP, vicki.shipkowitz@sap.com
* Prasad Yendluri, Software AG, Prasad.Yendluri@SoftwareAG.com
2e. TC Convener
The TC Convener is Jeff Mischkinsky, Oracle,
jeff.mischkinsky@oracle.com.
2f. Member Section Affiliation
The TC does not intend to affiliate with an OASIS Member Section.
2g. Anticipated Contributions
It is expected that Active Endpoints, Adobe, BEA, IBM, Oracle, and
SAP AG will contribute the BPEL4People v1 and WS-HumanTask v1
specifications [1-6] and any other related documents such as errata,
and that such documents will be the starting point contribution for
initiating the work of this TC.
References
[1] http://www.active-endpoints.com/active-bpel-for-people.htm
[2] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/bpel4people_overview.html
[3] http://dev2dev.bea.com/arch2arch/
[4]
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/specification/ws-bpel4
people/
[5] http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/standards/bpel4people/
[6] https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpel4people
