XPDL 1.0 Schema, Question about initial activity Options

[alan.mcnamara]

I have been reviewing the standard XPDL 1.0, dated October 25, 2002. This is the first time I have reviewed this specification in detail.

The XPDL schema allows the definition of a network of activities and transitions between those activities. In executing this network, one of the activities (usually a route activity, if the example is anything to go by) must be the 'initial' activity, first selected when the process is envoked. However, I cannot see where in the schema it is set which activity is the 'initial' activity. It is given for the example processes (EOder, CreditCheck, FillOrder) in the diagrams, but again, I could not see the value set in the example XPDL.

I know I must be missing something, otherwise the XPDL could not be run.

Could someone please point out to me where this information is defined in the XPDL schema and/or the process examples given.

Regards,
alan.mcnamara@badja.com

[Justin Brunt]

I think you could be right here. We had the same problem whilst implementing XPDL. I raised this issue at the last WfMC meetings and there is potentially a solution without modifying the specification but I don't believe that it will work for everybody (it doesn't work for us). The potential way to identify the initial activity is that it will not have any activities preceeding it. However, this is not always a satisfactory solution as some BPM and Process Modeling products can quite legitimately have a number of activities that have no predecessors (e.g. default start position and alternative start positions arrived at by creating a process instance and stipulating the start posistion).

Process Ends present the same issue and a similar solution is available (the activity that has no sucessors). Again this will not satisfy all products as again some products will allow a branch in a flow to terminate but the process instance will not terminate until all branches are completed. There could be several such branhces in a process.

Best regarsd

Justin

jbrunt@tibco.com

[Jessica S]

I have been reviewing the standard XPDL 1.0, dated October 25, 2002. This is the first time I have reviewed this specification in detail.

The XPDL schema allows the definition of a network of activities and transitions between those activities. In executing this network, one of the activities (usually a route activity, if the example is anything to go by) must be the 'initial' activity, first selected when the process is envoked. However, I cannot see where in the schema it is set which activity is the 'initial' activity. It is given for the example processes (EOder, CreditCheck, FillOrder) in the diagrams, but again, I could not see the value set in the example XPDL.

I know I must be missing something, otherwise the XPDL could not be run.

Could someone please point out to me where this information is defined in the XPDL schema and/or the process examples given.

Regards,
alan.mcnamara@badja.com

Thanks you for the post.
Hi guys, Im a newbie. Nice to join this forum.
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