About XPDL
XPDL Enables a Process Definition Ecosystem
XPDL is used today by more than 80 different products today to exchange process definitions. As a greater percentage part of the organization starts to use process tools for everyday work, it will become less and less reasonable to take a single-vendor strategy to process definition work. Users need to go beyond the vendor lock-in and take a “best of breed” approach that allows the use of their favorite process technology to accomplish specific process-oriented tasks, such as simulation and optimization, and future tasks that we can only dream of today.
XPDL is extensible so that it allows each different tool to store implementation-specific information within the XPDL, and have those values preserved even when manipulated by tools that do not understand those extensions. This is the only way to provide for a “round trip” through multiple tools and still be able to return to the original tool with complete fidelity.
XPDL is the Serialization Format for BPMN
BPMN is a visual process notation standard from the OMG, endorsed by WfMC, and broadly adopted across the industry. But the BPMN standard defines only the look of how the process definition is displayed on the screen. How you store and interchange those process definitions is outside the scope of the standard, and this is where XPDL comes in. XPDL provides a file format that supports every aspect of the BPMN process definition notation including graphic descriptions of the diagram, as well as executable properties used at run time. With XPDL, a product can write out a process definition with full fidelity, and another product can read it and reproduce the same diagram that was sent.
XPDL Keeps up to date with BPMN 2.0
In addition to extending the scope of its process modeling capabilities, BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Model and Notation) introduced the ability to serialize process models and diagrams.
The new XPDL 2.2 allows existing XPDL users and supporters to continue to exploit their investment in XPDL whilst extending BPMN support to encompass the new process modeling constructs of BPMN 2.0.
Visit XPDL.ORG for details of the new XPDL 2.2 specification and organizations that support XPDL.