The new ebXML BP specification (BPSS) approval marks a paradigm shift for BPM technology and SOA.

We have waited 5 years for the BPSS specification to finally become a fully approved standard. Why has this taken so long and now it has arrived - what is it delivering?

The original foundation work set during the initial ebXML work was aligned to the UN/CEFACT UMM process - and binary collaborations - this gave it sound grounding. However the underlying UML itself (that UMM is a specialization from) was never designed to provide full BPM modelling support - only localized programming development - and particularly the ability to manage context in a structured way is weakly defined in UML. Failure to reconcile that caused a signficant two year delay prior to the BPSS works transfer to an OASIS ebXML BP TC (technical committee).

All those growing pains however are now behind - and what has emerged is an immensely capable base specification that can form the foundation for SOA networks of collaborating services. To support this there is also an Eclipse based modelling tool for developing BPSS instances using the ebXML BP 2.0.4 specification.

The core capability highlights include:

1) Ability to define context and manage it across the BPM
2) Formal business signals mechanism
3) Business documents can be linked to transaction processing technology
4) Full process modelling via forking and flow control expressions

In today's demanding SOA environments it is crucial that business partners are able to share not just their transaction formats (query/response) - but also the exact processing control - including exception handling (signals) and collaboration control (context) to cover the edge conditions and "what if" systematically - that would otherwise require costly human intervention.

These definitions can now be shared in a formal way between partners - instead of being hidden in process logic within their internal integration systems.

The ebXML BP (BPSS) specification therefore provides a critical component for the development of large scale open cross-enterprise SOA solutions that are inclusive of all partners, large or small.

Norwegian Directorate of Labour and Welfare (NAV), was named a top 10 winner in the healthcare category of the InfoWorld 100 awards for 2006. The annual InfoWorld 100 awards honour the most innovative and cutting-edge implementations of enterprise technology to further business goals. Winners were formally announced in the 13th November 2006 print edition of InfoWorld.

The National Insurance Administration (formerly called Trygdeetaten) is the largest institution under the Norwegian Directorate of Labour and Welfare (NAV) and is responsible for healthcare, old age and disability pensions, and unemployment benefits. NAV initiated a project to replace the proprietary EDI-based communications e-health infrastructure it used to connect to its business partners with one based on open standards.

NAV implemented the Xenos terminalONE Transport software to provide reliable, secure internet based exchange of prescription and reimbursement information between the NIA organisation and 3,000 doctors' offices, pharmacies and hospital organisations. To date it has transported millions of ebXML messages corresponding to transactions totalling well over 10 billion Norwegian Kroner (equivalent to 1.2 billion Euro, or 1.5 billion USD) making it one of the largest ebXML implementations in the world.

For more ebXML case studies see the OASIS ebXML site.

In 2004 the UK National Health Service NHS adopted ebXML messaging for its mission critical Transactional Messaging Services (TMS) Spine. Anticipated annual message volume by 2010 is over 5,000,000,000 for managing healthcare in the UK from all sources - email, smartcard payments and ebXML.

At the OASIS Adoption Forum in London in November, 2006 the key-note presentation by Dr. Mark Ferrar, Director of Infrastructure, NHS Connecting for Health reported that the 'Choose and Book' system is now generating upward of 16,000 transactions daily with over 1.7 million generated so far this year.

The ebXML messaging is a foundation service as part of the SPINE architecture. Dr. Ferrar gives comprehensive details of the scale of the technology that NHS is implementing and the scope involving already 98% of doctors offices in the UK.

The French GESFIM - Gestion Electronique et Sécurisation du Fret International Multimodal - a project for the French Transportation and Logistics industry - has selected ebXML and CEFACT combined with RFID infrastructure as the basis for developing its implementation technologies. Funding is provided by the French Economy Ministry.

The project has an aggressive timetable and included partners are tasked with a variety of early deliverables to provide the underpinning for implementations within the industry. The total duration for the project is two years.

The GESFIM project description is available here (PDF) and the funding Economy Ministry for Finance and Industry website is here.

Project participants include:

■ ELIT (specialists in logistics and transportation software applications) http://www.elit.fr/
■ AD’MISSIONS (Professional Association of 1200 Consultants in France with expertise in standardization of the electronic exchanges eBusiness and associated technologies for Transport and Logistics. EDI, EDIFACT, XML...) programme Norm@Fret (normalisation Fret et Flotte ) http://www.admissions.fr/index.php
■ CRCI Nord-Pas de Calais. Regional chamber of commerce and industry, supporting the 13 local districts of Nord-Pas de Calais in Normandy, France. The CRCI has many years of logistics support experience. http://www.nordpasdecalais.cci.fr/

Oracle have made available an excellent step-by-step tutorial on configuring their B2B product suite for use with ebXML.

The OracleAS Integration B2B tutorials guide you through the steps to design, deploy, and verify B2B scenarios. After using this tutorial, you should be able to create and deploy your own custom document over ebXML messaging service (ebMS) transaction.

Oracle provides a CPA partner setup and control interface and other tools to allow easy implementation of a full ebMS solution.

The tutorial uses an Acme GlobalChips company as an example and details all the necessary aspects including how to configure your own XML payloads.

The tutorial relates to Oracle Application server (AS) 10g release 2 - 10.1.2

SystML has released to public use a beta implementation of generalizations of UBL transactions.

This is intended as a collaborative community development project. The examples can be viewed from the web site http://www.systml.co.uk/xml/ and include both schemas and XML sample files.

Transactions included are:

Despatch Advice, Invoice, Order Cancellation, Order Change, Order Response, Order Response
Simple, Order, Receipt Advice

and

Application Response, Attached Document, Debit Note, Credit Note, Despatch Advice, Invoice, Order Cancellation, Order Change, Order Response, Order Response Simple, Order, Quotation, Receipt Advice, Remittance Advice, Request For Quotation, Self Billed Credit Note, Self Billed Invoice, Statement, Simple Document.

for more details and business process models for usage see the site.