ebXML Process Flow

We now move from the generic definitions in the previous section to the specific model that ebXML has adopted for the foundation of its first specifications. Figure 2.4 provides a view of the overall ebXML approach, showing how two companies with no previous contact first establish a relationship and then begin exchanging e-business data, using the automated flow and sequence of interactions that ebXML prescribes.

Figure 2.4. ebXML process flow, from zero to doing e-business.[5]

As a preliminary step in Figure 2.4, notice that an industry must collect its business processes, scenarios, and company business profiles, and make them available through an industry ebXML registry. Company A is shown, and typically Company A has business software it has developed. Thus Company A, in planning to do business with other firms in this industry, requests these current and relevant specifications (step 1). Company A then acquires corresponding packaged software components or builds any additional features needed in the company's internal systems to accommodate these requirements (step 2). For example, a company wanting to sell consumable items to most hospitals will need to have product identifiers that meet the requirements of the Health Industry Bar Code specification and the systems to generate those bar codes.

After making any adjustments needed in its own business systems, Company A files the details about its systems into the industry registry using an ebXML-standard collaboration protocol profile ( CPP ), an XML document that provides a description of its ability to do e-business (step 3). Company A only needs to perform steps 1 “3 once to do business in the industry, although it will need to update its capabilities in the company profile as the capabilities develop further.

Next, Company A and Company B discover each other's capabilities, decide to become business partners , and develop a business partner relationship. With its ebXML-enabled system, Company B queries the registry and verifies the capabilities of Company A's collaboration protocol profile (step 4). The two companies work out the details of a relationship, including a collaboration protocol agreement ( CPA ) ”an XML document that spells out the technical aspects of the relationship (step 5). Once this arrangement is in place, the two companies can begin exchanging ebXML data, using transactions that drive the actual business process, shown as step 6 in the figure.

Looking at this process more closely uncovers three phases for companies to use ebXML: implementation, discovery, and runtime.

1. The implementation phase covers the steps needed to get the company's relevant applications compliant with ebXML (portrayed in steps 1 “3 in Figure 2.4). Companies request ”from the appropriate registry ”the ebXML specifications and the business process models for that industry, along with the industry vocabulary and associated business objects. The industry vocabulary includes what ebXML calls core components, which provide the business terms (the "nouns" and "verbs") used across industries and provide interoperability with lines of business outside the industry. In this phase, companies also file their collaboration protocol profiles with the registries.

2. The discovery phase covers discovery of e-business capabilities and completion of the collaboration protocol agreement. The collaboration protocol profiles describe potential partners' technical capabilities, as well as the business processes and scenarios they support. In Figure 2.4, step 4 shows this process, which provides important details that companies need before deciding on their trading arrangements. Step 5 covers the actual agreement to establish technical aspects of the business relationship.

3. In the runtime phase, companies ”or, more accurately, the company systems ”run the electronic business processing by exchanging messages and data compliant with ebXML, as portrayed in step 6 in Figure 2.4. In the diagram, the messages go directly from one company system to another, but they can also include third parties, such as financial institutions or web-based services such as industry exchanges that provide message transfers and routing.[6]