1 2 3 4 5 6 ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Version 0.90 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Context/Metamodel Group of the CC/BP Joint Delivery Team 1 Status of this Document 01/17/2001 This document is a working DRAFT for the ebusiness community. Distribution of this document is unlimited. This document will go through the formal Quality Review Process as defined by the ebxml Requirements Document. The formatting for this document is based on the Internet Society s Standard RFC format. This version EbXML_BPschema_0.90 Latest version EbXML_BPschema_0.90 Previous version EbXML_BPschema_0.87
35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 2 ebxml BP/CoreComponents metamodel participants We would like to recognize the following for their significant participation to the development of this document. Team Lead Paul Levine, Telcordia Editors Jim Clark, I.C.O.T. (previously Edifecs) Karsten Riemer, Sun Microsystems Cory Casanave, Data Access Technologies Participants Antoine Lonjon, Mega J.J. Dubray, Excelon Bob Haugen, Logistical Software Bill McCarthy, Michigan State University Paul Levine, Telcordia Brian Hayes, CommerceOne Betty Harvey, Electronic Commerce Connection Antonio Carrasco, Data Access Technologies
57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 3 Table of Contents 1 Status of this Document...i 2 ebxml BP/CoreComponents metamodel participants...ii 3 Table of Contents...iii 4 Introduction...vi Executive Summary...vi 4.1 Summary of Contents of Document... 1 4.2 Audience... 1 4.3 Related Documents... 1 4.4 Prerequisites... 1 5 Design Objectives... 1 5.1 Goals/Objectives/Requirements/Problem Description... 1 5.2 Caveats and Assumptions... 2 5.3 Metamodel Architecture... 2 6 System Overview... 5 UML Specification Schema... 5 DTD Specification Schema... 5 Business Process Interaction Patterns... 5 Common Interaction Pattern Modeling Elements... 5 Production Rules... 5 6.1 What the ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Does... 6 6.2 How the ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Works... 7 6.2.1 Core Business Transaction Semantics... 10 6.2.2 Response patterns... 12 6.2.3 Timeouts... 13 6.2.4 ControlException... 14 6.2.5 Business Protocol Exceptions (a.k.a. ProcessException)... 14 6.2.6 Security Parameters... 15 6.2.7 Concurrency... 17 6.2.8 Reliability... 18 6.2.9 Synchronous or Asynchronous... 18 6.3 Where the ebxml Specification Schema May Be Implemented... 18 7 Specification Element Overview... 18 7.1 Business Collaborations... 19 7.1.1 MultiPartyCollaboration... 19 7.1.2 BusinessPartner... 19 7.1.3 Performs... 20 7.1.4 AuthorizingRole... 20 7.1.5 BinaryCollaboration... 21 7.1.6 BusinessActivity... 21 7.1.7 BusinessTransactionActivity... 22 7.1.8 CollaborationActivity... 23 7.2 Business Transactions... 23 7.2.1 BusinessTransaction... 23 7.2.2 RequestingBusinessActivity... 24
102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 7.2.3 RespondingBusinessActivity... 25 7.3 Message Exchange... 26 7.3.1 DocumentEnvelope... 26 7.3.2 DocumentSet... 26 7.3.3 Content... 27 7.4 Document Model... 27 7.4.1 BusinessDocument... 27 7.4.2 StructuredDocument... 28 7.4.3 UnstructuredDocument... 29 7.4.4 InformationEntity... 29 7.4.5 AggregateInformationEntity... 30 7.4.6 BasicInformationEntity... 30 7.4.7 Attribute... 31 7.5 Choreography within Collaborations... 32 7.5.1 BusinessState... 32 7.5.2 Transition... 32 7.5.3 Start... 32 7.5.4 TerminalState... 33 7.5.5 Success... 33 7.5.6 Failure... 33 7.5.7 SynchronizationState... 34 7.5.8 Guard... 34 7.6 Definition and Scope... 34 7.7 Collaboration Specification Rules... 35 7.7.1 Well-formedness Rules... 35 8 Specification Schema (DTD)... 37 8.1 Documentation for the DTD... 37 8.2 DTD... 58 8.3 XML to UML cross-reference... 63 8.4 Scoped Name Reference... 65 8.5 Sample XML document against above DTD... 66 9 Common Modeling Elements... 74 9.1 Datatyping... 74 9.1.1 Global Datatypes... 74 9.1.2 Local Datatypes... 77 9.2 Business signal structures... 77 9.2.1 ReceiptAcknowledgment DTD... 77 9.2.2 AcceptanceAcknowledgement DTD... 81 9.2.3 Exception Signal DTD... 84 10 Production Rules... 87 11 Business Service Interaction Patterns... 88 11.1 Service Component Interaction Pattern... 88 11.1.1 Service-Service... 89 11.1.2 Agent-Service-Service... 94 11.1.3 Service-Service-Agent... 99 11.1.4 Service-Agent-Service... 104
148 149 150 151 152 153 154 11.1.5 Agent-Service-Agent... 110 12 References... 115 13 Disclaimer... 115 14 Contact Information... 116 Copyright Statement... 117
154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 4 Introduction Executive Summary The ebxml Specification Schema provides a standard framework by which business systems may be configured to support execution of business transactions. It is based upon prior UN/CEFACT work, specifically the metamodel behind the UN/CEFACT Unified Modeling Methodology (UMM) defined in the N90 specification. The current version of the specification schema facilitates the infrastructure release of ebxml's Transport/Routing/Packaging (TRP), Trading Partner (TP), and Registry/Repository (RegRep) specifications. The current version of the specification schema addresses collaborations between two parties (Binary Collaborations). A subsequent version will address additional features such as the semantics of economic exchanges and contracts, multi-party choreography, and context based content.
169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 4.1 Summary of Contents of Document This document specifies a specification schema for execution of business processes. This document describes the Specification Schema, both in its UML form and in its DTD form. To facilitate easy and consistent specification of the required legally binding 1 electronic commerce transaction this document also provides a set of standard patterns, and a set of modeling elements common to those standard patterns. The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [Bra97]. 4.2 Audience The primary audience is business process analysts. We define a business process analyst as someone who interviews business people and as a result documents business processes in unambiguous syntax. The audience is not business application developers. 4.3 Related Documents As mentioned above, other documents provide detailed definitions of some of the components of The ebxml Specification Schema and of their inter-relationship. They include ebxml Specifications on the following topics ebxml Technical Architecture, version 1.0 4.4 Prerequisites It is assumed that the audience will be familiar with or have knowledge of the following technologies and techniques Business process modeling techniques and principles The UML syntax and semantics, the UML metamodel and the UML extension mechanism The extended Markup Language (XML) 5 Design Objectives 5.1 Goals/Objectives/Requirements/Problem Description Business process models specify interoperable business processes that allow business partners to collaborate. 1 1 Legally binding in this context is refers to the effectivity of a contractual obligation, public or private, in all transactions whether formal or informal, a business transaction is the fulfillment of an exception, without such there is the potential for consequences.
203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 The ebxml Specification Schema provides for the nominal set of specification elements necessary to configure a runtime system in order to execute collaboration consisting of a set of ebxml business transactions. This schema facilitates the infrastructure release of ebxml s TRP, TP, and RegRep specifications. The Specification Schema is available in two stand-alone representations, a UML profile, and a DTD. Users of the Specification Schema will create business process specifications as either UML diagrams, or extended Markup Language (XML) documents. The Specification Schema supports the specification of Business Transactions and the choreography of Business Transactions into Business Collaborations. Each Business Transaction can be implemented using one of many available standard patterns. These patterns determine the actual exchange of messages and business signals between the partners to achieve the required electronic commerce transaction. Business signals are application level documents that signal the current state of the business transaction. These business signals have specific business purpose and are separate from lower protocol and transport signals. 5.2 Caveats and Assumptions This specification is designed to specify the run time aspects of a business collaboration. It represents one view of the overall metamodel as follows 5.3 Metamodel Architecture The ebxml Business Process and Information Meta Model is a description of business semantics that allows Trading Partners to capture the details for a specific business scenario using a consistent modeling methodology. A Business Process describes in detail how Trading Partners take on roles, relationships and responsibilities to facilitate interaction with other Trading Partners in shared Business Processes. The interaction between roles takes place as a choreographed set of Business Transactions. Each Business Transaction is expressed as an exchange of electronic Business Documents. The sequence of the exchange is defined by the Business Process, messaging and security considerations. Business Documents are composed from re-useable business information components. At a lower level, Business Processes can be composed of re-useable Core Processes, and Business Objects can be composed of reuseable Core Components. The ebxml Business Process and Information Meta Model supports requirements, analysis and design viewpoints that provide a set of semantics (vocabulary) for each viewpoint and forms the basis of specification of the semantics and artifacts that are required to facilitate business process and information integration and interoperability. An additional view of the metamodel, the Specification Schema, is also provided to support the direct specification of the nominal set of elements necessary to configure a runtime system in order to executive a set of ebxml business transactions. By drawing out modeling elements from several of the other views, ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 2 of 8
247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 the Specification Schema forms a semantic subset of the ebxml Business Process and Information Meta Model. The Specification Schema is available in two stand-alone representations, a UML profile, and a DTD. The relationship between the ebxml Business Process and Information Meta Model and the ebxml Specification Schema can be shown as follows Figure 5-1 Relationship between Metamodel and Specfication Schema 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 The Specification Schema supports the specification of Business Transactions and the choreography of Business Transactions into Business Collaborations. Each Business Transaction can be implemented using one of many available standard patterns. These patterns determine the actual exchange of messages and business signals between the partners to achieve the required electronic commerce transaction. To help specify the patterns the Specification Schema is accompanied by a set of standard patterns, and a set of modeling elements common to those standard patterns. The full specification, thus, of a business process consists of a business process model specified against the Specification Schema and an identification of the desired pattern(s). This full specification is then the input to the formation of trading partner Collaboration Protocol Profiles and Collaboration Protocol Agreements. This can be shown as follows ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 3 of 9
269 Figure 5-2 Relationship of specification schema to TP and Core Components 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 As the figure shows, the architecture of the ebxml Specification Schema consists of the following functional components (shown inside the dotted box) UML Specification Schema, DTD specification Schema, Business Process Interaction Patterns, Common Modeling Elements for Business Process Interaction Patterns and the Production Rules needed for the generation of UML specification into a XML Specification Document Together these components allow you to fully specify all the run time aspects of a business process and the accompanying information model. This run time business process and information specification is then incorporated into trading partner Collaboration Protocol Profiles (CPP) and Collaboration Protocol Agreements (CPA). Within these profiles and agreements are then added further technical parameters resulting in a full specification of the run-time software at each trading partner. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 4 of 10
286 287 6 System Overview Each of the components in the Specification Schema is described below 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 UML Specification Schema The UML Specification Schema is a semantic subset of the metamodel behind UMM as specified in UN/CEFACT TMWG s N90, expressed as a standalone UML profile. The UML Specification Schema guarantees that a XML Specification Document is analytically, semantically and functionally equivalent to one arrived at by modeling the same subset through the use of UMM. DTD Specification Schema The DTD Specification Schema is an isomorphic definition of the UML Specification Schema. The DTD Specification Schema seeks to guarantee that a XML Specification Document is analytically, semantically and functionally equivalent to a UML Specification Model of the same business process. This version of the specification is expressed as a DTD, and some of the constraints may need to be stated separately, in plain text. It is the intent to migrate to W3C schema, as soon as it becomes available as a standard. At that point such constraints, where possible, will be built into the schema. Business Process Interaction Patterns ebxml business service interfaces are configured to execute the business processes defined against the specification schema. They do so by exchanging ebxml messages and business signals. The Business Process Interaction Patterns define the permissible set of message sequences as determined by the type of business transaction defined, type of roles which are participating in the transaction and the timing policy specified in the transactions. Common Interaction Pattern Modeling Elements The Common Modeling Elements specifies the modeling elements, and their interrelationships, that are used to express Interaction Pattern Specification Production Rules The Specification Production rules provide the prescriptive definition necessary to translate a UML Specification Model into a XML Specification Document and the well-formed rules necessary to populate a XML Specification Document. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 5 of 11
319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 6.1 What the ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Does The UML Specification Schema provides the semantics, properties and elements necessary to define Business Collaborations, Business Transactions, Message Exchanges, Document Definitions, and Choreography within Collaborations. 1. Business Collaborations A Business Collaboration is a set of interactions between business partners. Each partner plays one or more roles in the collaboration. Binary Business Collaborations are between two roles only. Binary Collaborations are expressed as a set of BusinessActivities between the two roles. The BusinessActivities can be atomic, i.e. the activity of conducting an atomic BusinessTransaction, or composite, i.e. the activity of conducting another Binary Collaboration. In either case the activities can be choreographed as per below. Binary Collaborations can be synthesized into multi-party Collaborations. In this release there is no choreography among the binary collaborations making up a multiparty collaboration. 2. Business Transactions A business transaction is an atomic unit of work in a business collaboration. A business transaction is conducted between two business partners playing opposite roles in the transaction. A business transaction always starts with a requesting activity (carried out by the requesting role). This activity results in the sending of a request. This request serves to transition control to the responding role who then enters a responding activity. During or upon completion of the responding activity zero, zero or one response is sent. Optionally one or more business signals are also sent from the responding role to the requesting role. Part of the pattern of a business transaction determines when control transitions back to the requesting role. A business transaction will always either succeed or fail. If it succeeds it is legally binding for the two partners. If it fails it is null and void, and each partner must relinquish any mutual claim established by the transaction. This can be thought of as rolling back the business transaction upon failure. A business transaction activity defines the use of a business transaction in a collaboration. Each business transaction activity, thus, represents an atomic unit of work defined by the business transaction it refers to (uses) within the collaboration. A business collaboration choreographs one or more business transaction activities that are conducted amongst two or more parties. A business collaboration is not a transaction and should be used in cases where transaction rollback is inappropriate. For example, a buying partner may request a purchase order creating from a selling partner. The selling partner may partially accept purchase order and thus complete the ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 6 of 12
364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 transaction but may only return shipping information on part of the order. The buying partner is sent any number of later notifications regarding the outstanding portions of the order until the order is completely reconciled. 3. Message Exchanges A business transaction is defined as a set of business documents and signals exchanged between the requesting and responding roles. The documents are enclosed in named document envelopes. One envelope passes from requesting activity to responding activity and zero or one passes back from the responding activity to the requesting activity. In each document envelope is exactly one DocumentSet. A DocumentSet can contain be one or more business documents. The document set is in essence one transaction in the payload in the ebxml TRP message. 4. Document Definition An information entity is the basic building block for information structure. An information entity can be basic, aggregate, or specialized as a BusinessDocument. Aggregate information entities can have attributes which can be other information entities. A business document is the only type of information entity that can be contained in a DocumentSet for exchange between parties. A business document is always of a type called ebxmldocumenttype which can be unambiguously mapped to MIME types. 5. Choreography The choreography of business transactions within business collaborations, and the recursive nesting of business collaborations, is defined in terms of states, and transitions between those states. States include a start state, a completion state (which comes in a success and failure flavor), the activity state (in-process), and a synchronization state. Transitions are between states. Transitions can be gated by Guards. Guards can refer to the type of document set received in the document envelopes that caused the transition, and/or to postconditions on the prior state. 6.2 How the ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Works The ebxml Specification Schema should be used wherever software is being specified to perform a role in an ebxml binary collaboration. Specifically The ebxml Specification Schema is intended to provide the business process and document specification for the formation of a partner Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement. A set of specification rules have been established to properly constrain the the expression of a business process and information model in a way that can be directly incorporated into a trading partner Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 7 of 13
406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 A user would use a UML tool to create a model instance against this specification schema, and would then use the production rules to produce the XML version of the model, compliant with the DTD version of the specification schema. Alternatively a user would use an XML based tool to produce the XML version directly. Production rules would then aid in converting into XMI, so that it could be loaded into a UML tool, if required. In either case, the XML version gets registered in the repository for future retrieval when implementers want to establish trading partner Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement. At that point the XML document, or the relevant parts of it, are simply imbedded in or referenced by the CCP and CPA XML documents. As described above, the specification schema contains the following main sections 1. Business Collaborations (shown in green in diagram below) 2. Business Transactions (shown in blue in diagram below) 3. Message Exchanges (shown in yellow in diagram below) 4. Document Definition (further detailed in a subsequent diagram) 5. Choreography (shown in red in diagram below) The following picture shows the above semantics as a UML class diagram 427 ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 8 of 14
Transition 1 in * +entering 1 * 1 +exiting out BusinessState +states +collaboration * 1 BinaryCollaboration +uses 1 1 +collaboration +Guard 0..1 Start Terminal State Sync State Guard Success Failure BusinessActivity * * +usedby * Business Transaction +uses * BusinessTransactionActivity CollaborationActivity +transaction 1 1 1 +activities +transaction +responder +requester 1 1 RespondingBusinessActivity RequestingBusinessActivity 1 0..* +requesting 1 +Responding 0..* +responding +requesting 1 1 Document Envelope * Result +Potential Contents +requires * 0..1 Document Set +requesters +responders 0..* 0..* 1 +from +performers * Performs +role 1 +performers * Authorizin grole 1 +to 2 +role 1 +performedby Business Partner +partners * +Collaboration 1 MultiPartyColl aboration 428 429 Figure 6-1Overall Specification Schema as UML class diagram ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 9 of 15
430 431 432 The following picture shows the ebxml document model as a UML class diagram Abstract Attribute name String required Boolean islink makes an xpointer (External value) instead of an embeded value Information Entity +type 1 * Attribute +attribtues * Documen t Set ebxmldocument Basic Information Entity +owner +supertype 1 Aggregate Information Entity 0..1 * 1 +owner 1 +type +subtype Integers, Strings, Dates and things that fit in XML * +attributes Content * Unstructured Document Structured Document Pictures, Movies, EDI messages... Business Information 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 Figure 6-2Document model as UML class diagram 6.2.1 Core Business Transaction Semantics Before going through the semantics of each of the modeling elements in the class diagram, it is necessary to understand the semantics of the core concept, the business transaction. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 10 of 16
440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 The concept of a business transaction and the semantics behind it are central to predictable, enforceable commerce. In the ebxml model the business transaction always has the following semantics 1. The business transaction is a unit of work. All of the interactions in a business transaction must succeed or the transaction must be rolled back to a defined state before the transaction was initiated. 2. A business transaction is conducted between two business partners playing opposite roles in the transaction. 3. The business transaction is always viewed from the viewpoint of the requesting role 4. A business transaction always starts with a requesting activity (carried out by the requesting role). This activity results in the sending of a request. 5. The request serves to transition control to the responding role. 6. The responding role then enters a responding activity. During or upon completion of the responding activity zero or one response is sent. 7. The response (if any) transitions control back to the requesting role. If no response is sent then control transitions back to the requesting role based on the receipt of a business signal. 8. A receiptacknowledgement signal is required for all business transactions. The receiptacknowledgement signal is sent from the responding role to the requesting role upon receipt, and optionally validation of the request. 9. All business transactions succeed or fail. Success or failure depends on a. the receipt or non-receipt of the confirming response or business signals b. the expiration of time-outs c. the occurrence of a business exception d. the occurrence of a control exception Even though all business transactions are governed by the above semantics, business transactions can be carried out in many distinctly and succinctly defined patterns and with different security and exchange characteristics. The groups of specification elements that determine the exact pattern of a business transaction are 1. Response patterns 2. Time-outs 3. Control exceptions 4. Business protocol exceptions 5. Security parameters. 6. Concurrency ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 11 of 17
479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 7. Reliability 8. Synchronous or asynchronous 6.2.2 Response patterns. There is always only one request. During or upon completion of the responding activity zero or one response document set is sent. Optionally one or more business signals are also sent from the responding role to the requesting role. Therefore business transaction response patterns vary based on whether zero or one response is required and on how many business signals are required. In addition to the actual response document set, also called Substantive acceptance there are two possible business signal types Receipt acknowledgement this is a required signal in all business transactions. Acceptance acknowledgement (Non-Substantive) this may or may not be required, depending on the particular business transaction. The Substantive acceptance will always result in a successful completion of the business transaction. The other two are interim messages, and are of a type called business signal messages. The formal description of the two business signals above is Receipt acknowledgement business signal. The UN/EDIFACT model Trading Partner Agreement (TPA) suggests that a partners should agree on the point at which a message can be "said" to be properly received and this point should be when a receiving partner can "read" a message 2. The property isintelligiblecheckrequired allows partners to agree that a message should be readable before its receipt is verified 3. Acceptance Acknowledgement business signal. The UN/EDIFACT model TPA suggests that partners should agree on the point at which a message can be "said" to be accepted for business processing and this point should be after the contents of a business document have passed a business rule validity check. 4 2 The UN/ECE defines this to be the point after which a message passes a structure/ schema validity check. This is not a necessary condition for verifying proper receipt, only accessibility is. 3 4 This is the convention specified for RosettaNet and UN/CEFACT N90 commercial transactions. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 12 of 18
515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 6.2.3 Timeouts The specification of a business transaction may require each one of these independently of whether the other is required. If one is not required, it is actually not allowed. Therefore there is a finite set of combinations. These could then be given pattern names. Business modelers may find it convenient to develop and name business transaction design patterns to facilitate the development of their specifications. The following six property-value conventions for business transactions have proven useful in the application of the metamodel to existing business requirements. Commercial Transaction Request / Confirm Query / Response Request / Response Notification Information Distribution Since all business transactions must have a distinct time boundary, there are time-out parameters associated with each of the response types. If the time-out occurs before the required response arrives, the transaction is null and void. Here are the time-out parameters relative to the three response types Response required Parameter Name Meaning of timeout Receipt acknowledgement timetoacknowledgereceipt The time a responding role has to acknowledge receipt of a business document. Acceptance timetoacknowledgeacceptance The time a Acknowledgement responding role (Non-substantive) has to nonsubstantively acknowledge business acceptance of a business document. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 13 of 19
document. Substantive acceptance TimeToPerform The time a responding role has to substantively acknowledge business acceptance of a business document. 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 A time-out parameter must be specified whenever a requesting partner expects one or more responses to a business document request. A requesting partner must not remain in an infinite wait state. The time-out value for each of the time-out parameters is absolute i.e. not relative to each other. All timers start when the requesting business document is sent. The timer values must comply with the well-formedness rules in the previous section. A responding partner simply terminates if a timeout is thrown. This prevents responding business transactions from hanging indefinitely. When the time to perform an activity equals the time to acknowledge receipt or the time to acknowledge business acceptance then the highest priority time out exception must be used when the originator provides a reason for revoking their original business document offer. The time to perform exception is lower priority than both the time to acknowledge receipt and the time to acknowledge business acceptance. 6.2.4 ControlException A ControlException signals an error condition in the management of a business transaction. This business signal is asynchronously returned to the initiating service that originated the request. This exception must terminate the business transaction. These errors deal with the mechanisms of message exchange such as verification, validation, authentication and authorization and will occur up to message acceptance. Typically the rules and constraints applied to the message will have only dealt with structure, syntax and message element values. 6.2.5 Business Protocol Exceptions (a.k.a. ProcessException) Under all normal circumstances the response message and/or the timeouts determine the success or failure of a business transaction. However the business processing of the transaction can go wrong at either the responding or the requesting role. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 14 of 20
568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 A ProcessException signals an error condition in a business activity. This business signal is asynchronously returned to the initiating service that originated the request. This exception must terminate the business transaction. These errors deal with the mechanisms that process the business transaction and will occur after message verification and validation. Typically the rules and constraints applied to the message will deal the semantics of message elements and the validity of the request itself and the content is not valid with respect to a responding role s business rules. This type of exception is usually generated after an AcceptanceAcknowledgement has been returned. A business protocol exception terminates the business transaction. The following are business protocol exceptions. Negative acknowledgement of receipt. The structure/schema of a message is invalid. Negative acknowledgement of acceptance. The business rules are violated. Performance exceptions. The requested business action cannot be performed. Sequence exceptions. The order or type of a business document or business signal is incorrect. Syntax exceptions. There is invalid punctuation, vocabulary or grammar in the business document or business signal. Authorization exceptions. Roles are not authorized to participate in the business transaction. Business process control exceptions. Business documents are not signed for non-repudiation. A responding role that throws a business protocol exception signals the exception back to the requesting role and then terminates the business transaction. A requesting role that throws a business protocol exception terminates the transaction and then sends a notification revoking the offending business document request. The requesting role does not send a business exception signal to the responding role. If any business exceptions (includes negative receipt and acceptance acknowledgements) are signaled then the business transaction must terminate. 6.2.6 Security Parameters There are a number of parameters that specify the security characteristics of the business transaction. These fall in a number of categories Document security, Message transfer security, ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 15 of 21
609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 Action security, Non-repudiation. 6.2.6.1 Document security Each business document being transported, even if many are collected in the same message, can be specified as 6.2.6.2 Message transfer security 6.2.6.3 Action security isconfidential. The information entity is encrypted so that unauthorized parties cannot view the information. istamperproof. The information entity has an encrypted message digest that can be used to check if the message has been tampered with. This requires a digital signature (sender s digital certificate and encrypted message digest) associated with the document entity. isauthenticated. There is a digital certificate associated with the document entity. This provides proof of the signer s identity. Each message can be specified to require secure transport. flavor. issecuretransportrequired This reuirement comes in two flavors Persistence NOT required means no-one can snoop the message on the wire. Persistence required means the message will not be readable by anyone until delivered into the application space. Each request or response may be sent by any number of people in the respective business partners companies. A request can be seen as invoking the responding activity. The response can be seen as invoking the requesting activity. The act of invoking may require the invoker to be authorized. IsAuthorizationRequired is specified on the requesting and responding activity accordingly. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 16 of 22
649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 6.2.6.4 Non-Repudiation 6.2.7 Concurrency Business transactions are legally binding. To help the parties have solid documentation to enforce contractual obligation in court, non-repudiation may be required. There are two flavors of non-repudiation. One requires the two parties to save copies of the transacted documents, each on their own side, i.e. requestor saves his request, responder saves his response. This is the isnonrepudiationrequired in the requesting or responding activity. The other requires the responder to send a signed copy of the receipt, which the requestor then saves. This is the isnonrepudiationofreceiptrequired in the requesting business activity. NonRepudiationOfReceipt is tied to the ReceiptAcknowledgement, in that it requires it to be signed. So one cannot have NonRepudiationOfReceipt without ReceiptAcknowledgement required, and the timetoacknowledgereceipt applies to both, i.e. if NonRepudiationOfReceipt is true and a signed receipt is not returned within timetoacknowledgereceipt, the transaction is null and void. There is one more parameter that governs the flow of transactions, but this one does not govern the internal flow of a transaction, rather it determines whether multiple instances of that transaction type can be open at the same time as part of the same activity. IsConcurrent at business transaction activity level. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 17 of 23
687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 6.2.8 Reliability A parameter at the transaction level states whether guaranteed delivery required. IsGuaranteedDeliveryRequired is a parameter in the business transaction 6.2.9 Synchronous or Asynchronous A business transaction may be implemented as either a synchronous or an asynchronous flow of control between the two activities. The specification of synchronous vs. asynchronous is part of the interaction pattern specification for a business transaction. A partner role that initiates an asynchronous business transaction does not need to receive any business signals. A partner role that initiates a synchronous business transaction must be able to receive business signals and must block until the flow of control is returned. This should not preclude the initiation and execution of multiple concurrent business transactions, however. 6.3 Where the ebxml Specification Schema May Be Implemented The ebxml Specification Schema should be used wherever software is being specified to perform a role in an ebxml binary collaboration. Specifically The ebxml Specification Schema is intended to provide the business process and document specification for the formation of a trading partner Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement. 7 Specification Element Overview In the following we will review all the specification elements in the specification schema, grouped as follows Business Collaborations Business Transactions ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 18 of 24
724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 Message Exchange Document model Choreography 7.1 Business Collaborations 7.1.1 MultiPartyCollaboration A multiparty collaboration is a synthesis of binary collaborations. A multiparty collaboration consists of a number of business partners each playing one or more roles in binary collaborations with each other. In this release a multiparty collaboration is merely a composition of binary collaborations. There is not in this release any support for choreography among the binary collaborations across multiple partners. Tagged Values NONE 743 744 745 Associations partners A multiparty collaboration has two or more BusinessPartners 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 7.1.2 BusinessPartner Wellformedness Rules NONE The business partners that participate in business collaborations are enumerated for each multiparty business collaboration. Partners provide the initiating and responding roles in the underlying binary collaborations. 754 755 756 757 758 Tagged Values name. Associations The name of the roles played by partner in the overall multiparty business collaboration, e.g. customer or supplier ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 19 of 25
759 760 performers. The authorizing roles performed by a partner in the binary business collaboration. 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 7.1.3 Performs Wellformedness Rules A partner must not perform both roles in a business transaction activity. Performs is an explicit modeling of the relationship between a BusinessPartner and the Roles it plays. This specifies the use of an authorizing role within a multiparty collaboration. Tagged Values NONE 772 773 774 775 776 Associations performedby role An instance of Performs is performed by only one BusinessPartner Performs is the use of an AuthorizingRole within a multiparty collaboration 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 7.1.4 AuthorizingRole Wellformedness Rules NONE An authorizing role is the role that authorizes the requesting or responding activity, e.g. the buyer authorizes the request for purchase order, the seller authorizes the acceptance of purchase order. 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 Tagged Values name. Associations performers requestors responders The name of the role within the business transaction An AuthorizingRole may be used by one or more performers, i.e. business partners in a multiparty collaboration An AuthorizingRole may authorize one or more requesting activities An AuthorizingRole may authorize one or more responding activities ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 20 of 26
796 797 798 799 800 801 from to collaboration An AuthorizingRole may be the initiator in a business activity An AuthorizingRole may be the responder in a business activity An AuthorizingRole may be in only one BinaryCollaboration 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 7.1.5 BinaryCollaboration Wellformedness Rules An AuthorizingRole may not be both the requestor and the responder in a business transaction An AuthorizingRole may not be both the initiator and the responder in a binary business collaboration A binary business collaboration choreographs one or more business transaction activities between two roles. A binary business collaboration is not a transaction and should be used in cases where transaction rollback is inappropriate. Tagged Values timetoperform. The time allowed to complete the binary collaboration 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 Associations role states usedby A binary collaboration consists of two roles A binary collaboration consists of one or more states, some of which are static, and some of which are action states A binary collaboration may be used within another binary collaboration via a collaboration activity 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 7.1.6 BusinessActivity Wellformedness Rules NONE A business activity is an action state within a binary collaboration. It is the supertype for BusinessTransactionActivity and CollaborationActivity, specifying the activity of performing a transaction or another binary collaboration respectively. Tagged Values name. The name of the activity within the binary collaboration ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 21 of 27
835 836 837 Associations from to The initiating role The responding role 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 Wellformedness Rules NONE 7.1.7 BusinessTransactionActivity A business transaction activity is a business activity that executes a specified business transaction. The business transaction activity can be executed more than once if the isconcurrent property is true. Tagged Values timetoperform. Both partners agree to perform a business transaction activity within a specific duration. The originating partner must send a failure notification to a responding partner on timeout. A responding partner simple terminates its activity. The time to perform is the duration from the time a business transaction activity initiates the first business transaction until there is a transition back to the initiating business transaction activity. Both partners agree that the business signal document or business action document specified as the document to return within the time to perform is the Acceptance Document in an on-line offer/acceptance contract formation process. isconcurrent. If the business transaction activity is concurrent then more than one business transaction can be open at one time. If the business transaction activity is not concurrent then only one business transaction activity can be open at one time. 868 869 870 Associations uses. The business transaction activity executes (uses) exactly one business transaction. 871 872 873 Wellformedness Rules NONE ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 22 of 28
874 875 876 877 878 7.1.8 CollaborationActivity A collaboration activity is the activity of performing a binary collaboration within another binary collaboration. Tagged Values NONE (other than inherited) 879 880 881 Associations uses. A collaboration activity uses exactly one binary collaboration 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 Wellformedness Rules 7.2 Business Transactions 7.2.1 BusinessTransaction A binary collaboration may not re-use itself A business transaction is a set of business information and business signal exchanges amongst two commercial partners that must occur in an agreed format, sequence and time period. If any of the agreements are violated then the transaction is terminated and all business information and business signal exchanges must be discarded. business transactions can be formal as in the formation of on-line offer/acceptance commercial contracts and informal an in the distribution of product announcements. Tagged Values issecuretransportrequired. Both partners must agree to exchange business information using a secure transport channel. The following security controls ensure that business document content is protected against unauthorized disclosure or modification and that business services are protected against unauthorized access. This is a point-to-point security requirement. Note that this requirement does not protect business information once it is off the network and inside an enterprise. The following are requirements for secure transport channels. Authenticate sending role identity Verify the identity of the sending role (employee or organization) that is initiating the role interaction (authenticate). Authenticate receiving role identity Verify the identity of the receiving role (employee or ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 23 of 29
915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 7.2.2 RequestingBusinessActivity organization) that is receiving the role interaction. Verify content integrity Verify the integrity of the content exchanged during the role interaction i.e. check that the content has not been altered by a 3 rd party. Maintain content confidentiality Confidentiality ensures that only the intended, receiving role can read the content of the role interaction isguaranteeddeliveryrequired. Both partners must agree to use a transport that guarantees delivery A requestingbusinessactivity is a business activity that is performed by a role requesting commerce from another business role. IsAuthorizationRequired If a partner role needs authorization to request a business action or to respond to a business action then the sending partner role must sign the business document exchanged and the receiving partner role must validate this business control and approve the authorizer. A responding partner must signal an authorization exception if the sending partner role is not authorized to perform the business activity. A sending partner must send notification of failed authorization if a responding partner is not authorized to perform the responding business activity. IsNonRepudiationRequired If non-repudiation of origin and content is required then the business activity must store the business document in its original form for the duration mutually agreed to in a trading partner agreement. A responding partner must signal a business control exception if the sending partner role has not properly delivered their business document. A requesting partner must send notification of failed business control if a responding partner has not properly delivered their business document. TimeToPerform The time a responding role has to substantively acknowledge business acceptance of a business document. TimeToAcknowledgeAcceptance The time a responding role has to non-substantively acknowledge business acceptance of a business document. TimeToAcknowledgeReceipt The time a responding role has to acknowledge receipt of a business document. ebxml Business Process Specification Schema Page 24 of 30