Using UML to design distributed collaborative workflows: from UML to XPDL

Business process modelling and work/flow process execution are often conducted in diverse environments and described using diverse process definition languages. Such systems often underpin distributed collaboration systems, but there is a current need to allow developers to use existing and familiar design methodologies and tools to design these systems. This paper presents the business model architecture used in the DIECoM1 project and examines the problem of how to transfer multiple views on a business process model in UML to a computer view for workflow execution. The roles and relationships of various views described by Use Case Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, Statechart Diagrams and Activity Diagrams are clarified and the missing information is supplied to facilitate the design of a uniform executable workflow model. As a result, the process models defined in the proposed way are consistent with XPDL semantics and can be readily translated to an XPDL file with the aid of an XSLT processor.