Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

EPC markup language (EPML): an XML-based interchange format for event-driven process chains (EPC)

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Information Systems and e-Business Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article presents an XML-based interchange format for event-driven process chains (EPC) that is called EPC markup language (EPML). EPML builds on EPC syntax related work and is tailored to be a serialization format for EPC modelling tools. Design principles inspired by other standardization efforts and XML design guidelines have governed the specification of EPML. After giving an overview of EPML concepts we present examples to illustrate its features including flat and hierarchical EPCs, business views, graphical information, and syntactical correctness.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • van der Aalst WMP (1999) Formalization and verification of event-driven process chains. Inf Softw Technol 41(10):639–650

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Aalst WMP, Desel J, Kindler E (2002) On the semantics of EPCs: a vicious circle. In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 1st GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2002), Trier, Germany, pp 71–79

  • van der Aalst WMP, Kumar A, Verbeek HMW (2003) Organizational modeling in UML and XML in the context of workflow systems. In: Proceedings of the 2003 ACM symposium on applied computing (SAC), pp 603–608

  • Andrews T, Curbera F, Dholakia H, Goland Y, Klein J, Leymann F, Liu K, Roller D, Smith D, Thatte S, Trickovic I, Weerawarana S (2003) Business process execution language for Web Services, Version 1.1, Specification, BEA Systems, IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., SAP AG, Siebel Systems

  • ANSI X12 (2002) ASC X12 Reference Model for XML Design, Technical Report Type II-ASC X12C/TG3/2002-xxx, ANSI ASC X12C Communications and Controls Subcommittee

  • Arenas M, Libkin L (2002) A normal form for XML documents. In: Proceedings of the 21st ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART symposium on principles of database systems (PODS’02), pp 85–96

  • Arenas M, Libkin L (2003) An information-theoretic approach to normal forms for relational and XML data. In: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART symposium on principles of database systems (PODS’03), pp 15–26

  • Beech D, Lawrence S, Moloney M, Mendelsohn N, Thompson, HS (2001) XML Schema Part 1: Structures. W3C Recommendation 02 May, World Wide Web Consortium

  • Billington J, Christensen S, van Hee KE, Kindler E, Kummer O, Petrucci L, Post R, Stehno C, Weber M (2003). The Petri Net Markup Language: Concepts, Technology, and Tools. In: van der Aalst WMP, Best E (eds) Applications and theory of Petri Nets 2003, 24th international conference, ICATPN 2003, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, vol 2679 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp 483–505

  • Biron PV, Malhorta, A (2001) XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. W3C Recommendation 02 May, World Wide Web Consortium

  • Biskup J (1998) Achievements of relational database schema design theory revisited. In: Libkin L, Thalheim B (eds) Semantics in Databases, vol 1358, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp 29–54

  • Boehm BW (1976) Software engineering. IEEE Trans Comput 25(12):1226–1241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bos B, Lie HW, Lilley C, Jacobs I (1998) Cascading style sheets, level 2. W3C Recommendation 12-May-1998, World Wide Web Consortium

  • Chen R, Scheer AW (1994) Modellierung von Prozessketten mittels Petri-Netz-Theorie, Technical Report 107, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Saarbrücken, Germany

  • Clark J, DeRose S (1999) XML path language (XPath) Version 1.0. W3C Recommendation 16 November, World Wide Web Consortium

  • Cuntz N, Kindler E (2004) On the semantics of EPCs: efficient calculation and simulation. In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2004), Luxembourg, pp 7–26

  • Dehnert J (2002) Making EPC’s fit for workflow management. In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 1st GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2002), Trier, Germany, pp 51–69

  • Delphi Group (2003) BPM 2003—market milestone report, Delphi Group White Paper

  • Embley DW, Mok WY (2001) Developing XML documents with guaranteed “good” properties. In: Kunii HS, Jajodia S, Sølvberg A (eds) Conceptual modeling—ER 2001, Proceedings of the 20th international conference on conceptual modeling, vol 2224 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp 426–441

  • Finkelstein A, Kramer J, Nuseibeh B, Finkelstein L, Goedicke M (1992) Viewpoints: a framework for integrating multiple perspectives in system development. Int J Softw Eng Knowl Eng 2(1):31–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gartner Research (2002) The BPA market catches another major updraft, Gartner’s Application Development & Maintenance Research, 12 June, Note M-16-8153

  • IDS Scheer AG (2001) XML-export und -import mit ARIS 5.0, Whitepaper January 2001

  • ISO—International Organization for Standardization (2001) XML Design Rules. ISO 15022 Technical Specification

  • Karagiannis D, Kühn H (2002) Metamodelling platforms. Invited Paper. In: Bauknecht K, Min Tjoa A, Quirchmayer G (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd international conference EC-Web 2002–Dexa 2002, Aix-en-Provence, France, vol 2455 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp 182–196

  • Keller G, Meinhardt S (1994) SAP R/3 Analyzer. Business process reengineering based on the R/3 reference model. SAP AG

  • Keller G, Teufel T (1998) SAP(R) R/3 process oriented implementation: iterative process prototyping. Addison-Wesley, Reading

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller G, Nüttgens M, Scheer AW (1992) Semantische Prozessmodellierung auf der Grundlage “Ereignisgesteuerter Prozessketten (EPK)”, Technical Report 89, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Saarbrücken, Germany

  • Kindler E (2003) On the semantics of EPCs: a framework for resolving the vicious circle (Extended Abstract). In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2003), Bamberg, Germany, pp 7–18

  • Langner P, Schneider C, Wehler J (1998) Petri net based certification of event driven process chains. In: Desel J, Silva M (eds) Application and theory of petri nets, vol 1420 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp 286–305

  • Mendling J, Nüttgens M (2002) Event-driven-process-chain-markup-language (EPML): Anforderungen zur Definition eines XML-Schemas für Ereignisgesteuerte Prozessketten (EPK). In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 1st GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2002), Trier, Germany, pp 87–93

  • Mendling J, Nüttgens M (2003a) EPC Modelling based on implicit arc types. In: Godlevsky M, Liddle SW, Mayr HC (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on information systems technology and its applications (ISTA), Kharkiv, Ukraine, vol 30 of Lecture Notes in Informatics, pp 131–142

  • Mendling J, Nüttgens M (2003b) EPC syntax validation with XML schema languages. In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2003), Bamberg, Germany, pp 19–30

  • Mendling J, Nüttgens M (2003c) XML-basierte Geschäftsprozessmodellierung. In: Uhr W, Esswein W, Schoop E (eds) Proceedings of Wirtschaftsinformatik 2003/Band II, Dresden, Germany, pp 161 –180

  • Mendling J, Nüttgens M (2004) XML-based reference modelling: foundations of an EPC markup language. In: Becker J (ed) Referenzmodellierung—Proceedings of the 8th GI-workshop on reference modelling, MKWI Essen, Germany, pp 51–71

  • Mendling J, Brabenetz, A, Neumann G (2004a) EPML2SVG—generating Websites from EPML processes. In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2004), Luxembourg, pp 55–64

  • Mendling J, Neumann G, Nüttgens M (2004b) Transformation of ARIS markup language to EPML. In: Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (ed) Proceedings of the 3rd GI-workshop on business process management with event-driven process chains (EPK 2004), Luxembourg, pp 27–38

  • Neumann G, Strembeck M (2002) A scenario-driveen role engineering process for functional RBAC roles. In: Proceedings of the 7th ACM symposium on access control models and technologies (SACMAT), Monterey, USA, June 2002

  • Nüttgens M, Mendling J (2004) XML4BPM 2004—proceedings of the 1st GI-workshop of XML interchange formats for business process management, Marburg, Germany

  • Nüttgens M, Rump FJ (2002) Syntax und Semantik Ereignisgesteuerter Prozessketten (EPK). In: Desel J, Weske M (eds) Promise 2002—proceedings of the GI-workshop, Potsdam, Germany, vol 21 of Lecture Notes in Informatics, pp 64–77

  • OMG Object Management Group (2003) XML metadata interchange (XMI), Specification, Version 2.0

  • Österle H (1995) Business Engineering. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York

    Google Scholar 

  • OWL Services Coalition (2004) OWL-S: semantic markup for Web Services. Whitepaper Version 1.0

  • Rittgen P (2000) Paving the road to business process automation. In: Proceedings of the European conference on information systems (ECIS), Vienna, Austria, pp 313–319

  • Rosemann M, zur Mühlen M (1997) Evaluation of workflow management systems—a meta model approach. In: Siau K, Wand Y, Parsons J (eds) Proceedings of the 2nd CAiSE/IFIP 8.1 international workshop on evaluation of modeling methods in systems analysis and design (EMMSAD’97), Barcelona, Spain, June 1997

  • Rump FJ (1999) Geschäftsprozessmanagement auf der Basis ereignisgesteuerter Prozessketten - Formalisierung, Analyse und Ausführung von EPKs. Teubner Verlag

  • Scheer AW (2000) ARIS business process modelling. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York

    Google Scholar 

  • SWIFT (2001) SWIFT standards XML design rules Version 2.3, Technical Specification

  • Weber M, Kindler E (2002) The Petri net markup language. In: Ehrig H, Reisig W, Rozenberg G, Weber H (eds) Petri net technology for communication based systems, vol 2472 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp 124–144

  • WfMC Workflow Management Coalition (2002) Workflow process definition interface—XML process definition language, Document Number WFMC-TC-1025, October 25, 2002, Version 1.0

  • White SA (2004) Business process modeling notation. Version 1.0. BPMI

  • Wüstner E, Hotzel T, Buxmann P (2002) Converting business documents: a classification of problems and solutions using XML/XSLT. In: Proceedings of the 4th international workshop on advanced issues of E-Commerce and Web-based Systems (WECWIS), pp 61–68

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems and New Media, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, 1180, Vienna, Austria

    Jan Mendling

  2. Chair of Information Systems, University of Hamburg, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Markus Nüttgens

Authors
  1. Jan Mendling
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Markus Nüttgens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan Mendling.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mendling, J., Nüttgens, M. EPC markup language (EPML): an XML-based interchange format for event-driven process chains (EPC). ISeB 4, 245–263 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-005-0026-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-005-0026-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation