Business Processes and Context-sensitive Business Documents: Business Collaborations Based on Umm 1.0

Exchanging business information by connecting computer systems of business partners is not particularly new, but seamless integration is still an open issue. The problem domain of seamless information flows has two major dimensions. The first dimension deals with the format of the business data exchanged. The second dimension, which represents the core of this book, focuses on the business content of the information exchanged. In other words, the semantics of the business information independent of the representation format. Only if business partners have a common view on the business semantics their systems will be able to interoperate. We propose to replace the document-centric approach by a business state-centric one. Business collaborations are about managing a shared view on business states. Aligning business states between business partners requires the exchange of business information. The business information is limited to the information required to change the state of one or more business entities affected by the exchange. We define a methodology based on business state management to unambiguously describe the business semantics of a business collaboration.