What is XPDL ?

XPDL is the abbreviation of "XML Process Definition Language". The Workflow Management Coalition has identified five functional interfaces for a workflow service as part of its standardization program. The XPDL specification is part of the documentation relating to “Interface one” supporting process definition import and export. This interface includes a common meta-model for describing process definitions (XPDL specification which version 1.0 can be found at http://www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/TC-1025_10_xpdl_102502.pdf) and an XML schema for the interchange of such process definitions.

XPDL is a very well accepted standard and is implemented by many commercial and open source workflow engines. A very nice showcase of XPDL usage across several different vendors can be seen here.

A detailled introduction into XPDL modelling is part of the Together Workflow Editor documentation.

Who is WfMC ?

The Workflow Management Coalition, 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. Consisting of over 300 members worldwide, the Coalition is the primary standards body for this significant software market.

Is the Together Workflow Editor file format open ?

Yes. Together Workflow Editor reads and writes pure XPDL XML files. These XPDL files are completely and purely based on the standard XPDL schema defined by WfMC.

Which workflow engines / servers does it support ?

Together Workflow Editor produces XML files based on the XPDL specification, and supports every workflow engine that knows how to interpret XPDL. Some example are: Together Workflow Server , Fujitsu, TIBCO, WfmOpen, OBE, OfBiz.

A complete list of XPDL enabled products can be found at WfMC "XPDL Support / Resources".

Which languages does it support ?

Together Workflow Editor currently supports English, German, French and Serbian language.

Which version of XPDL does it support ?

Together Workflow Editor currently supports XPDL version 1.0.

What are "XPDL extended attributes" ?

One of the key elements of XPDL is its extensibility to handle information used by a variety of different tools.

XPDL may never be capable of supporting all additional information requirements in all tools. Based upon a limited number of entities that describe a workflow process definition (the "Minimum Meta Model") XPDL supports a number of different extensibility approaches.

"Extended Attributes" are one of the most important elements of XPDL. This is a generic construct that supports vendor specific attributes for use within the common representation.

How can I print a process graph ?

You can save a process graph as JPG or SVG file, open it and print it using your favorite imaging tool.

What is Wf-XML ?

Wf-XML is a standardized WfMC web service protocol that can be used to connect to a process engine remotely for the purpose of sending or retrieving process definitions. Most people are aware that various process definition languages have been developed in recent years. The most famous is WfMC XPDL, but equally notable is OASIS WS-BPEL, as well as other specialized process definition languages. The process definitions that are described by these languages are expected to be installed into a process engine for execution. The language itself naturally does not define how to install the definition into an engine. This is the role of Wf-XML.

The central concept is that there will be process design tools like Together Workflow Editor that specialize in allowing a user to edit a process definition which can consume and produce a standard format. There will be process engines that can execute such definitions. The process design tool uses Wf-XML to list the process definitions that are loaded into the process engine and retrieve a particular process definition. Wf-XML also provides a way to update the process definition, as well as to install new process definitions into an engine.

Together Workflow Editor fully supports Wf-XML and has shown its compatibility.

Is my original XPDL file modified ?

Yes, Together Workflow Editor does the following changes to your XPDL:

It adds extended attributes for:

Specifying the version of Together Workflow Editor that is used to produce (modify) the XPDL file
Specifying the Id of externally referenced XPDL files (if any)
Specific graphical positioning

If your XPDL does not have properly defined XPDL’s TransitionRestriction elements of an Activity it will be corrected.

No other changes are done to your XPDL file by Together Workflow Editor.

What are "swimlanes" in XPDL ?

Swimlanes are just the graphical representation of workflow participants in Together Workflow Editor. This representation gives a comprehensive overview of process responsibilities.

When an activity is inside a swimlane it means that the participant represented by the swimlane will be responsible for the execution of this activity. In run-time the execution engine will map XPDL participanta to the particular users of the actual system.

Which "XPDL extended attributes" are supported ?

Together Workflow Editor supports every use of XPDL extended attributes defined by the WfMC XPDL standard.

It adds special extended attributes to the "Package", "ExternalPackage", "WorkflowProcess", "Activity" and "Transition" elements.

Extended attributes added to the "Package" element:

EDITING_TOOL - used to mark that the XPDL file was modified / written by Together Workflow Editor

EDITING_TOOL_VERSION - stores information about the used version of Together Workflow Editor


Extended attributes added to the "ExternalPackage" element:

EXTERNAL_PACKAGE_ID - used to specify the Id of an externally referenced package


All other extended attributes are used by the Graph component in order to hold the information about the graphical properties of elements, such as positions, orientation, order, etc.

Extended attributes added to the "WorkflowProcess" element:

JaWE_GRAPH_BLOCK_PARTICIPANT_ORIENTATION - information about the orientation of participants in an activity set graph

JaWE_GRAPH_WORKFLOW_PARTICIPANT_ORIENTATION - information about the orientation of participants in a worfklow process graph

JaWE_GRAPH_BLOCK_PARTICIPANT_ORDER - information about the participant order for activity sets

JaWE_GRAPH_WORKFLOW_PARTICIPANT_ORDER - information about participant order

JaWE_GRAPH_START_OF_BLOCK - information about the start bubble inside an activity set

JaWE_GRAPH_END_OF_BLOCK - information about the end bubble inside an activity set

JaWE_GRAPH_START_OF_WORKFLOW - information about the start bubble inside a workflow process

JaWE_GRAPH_END_OF_WORKFLOW - information about the end bubble inside a workflow process


Extended attributes added to the "Activity" element:

JaWE_GRAPH_PARTICIPANT_ID - information about the swimlane (representation of the XPDL Participant or some special kind of swimlanes for defining activity performer as an expression) that holds the activity.

JaWE_GRAPH_OFFSET - information about the location of an activity


Extended attributes added to the "Transition" element:

JaWE_GRAPH_TRANSITION_STYLE - information about the drawing style

JaWE_GRAPH_BREAK_POINTS - information about break point offsets