Including workflow concurrent modelling in an extension of the UML activity diagram metamodel

Summary form only given. A workflow is a business process whose execution is controlled in an automated fashion by a workflow management system (wms). A model of the process to be enacted is supplied to the wms through a specification known as process definition. The format of such definition has been standardized by the workflow management coalition (wfmc) with the purpose of satisfying the need of interaction and connectivity between process definition tools and different workflow systems. The workflow process definition standard is specified by a metamodel and the workflow process definition language (wpdl). Both are isomorphic. In business process modelling, the UML standard notation supports less details than the wfmc standard. A wpdl process definition may contain more information than UML activity diagrams. Therefore, a process specification based on activity diagrams does not satisfy the wfmc standard. We propose the integration of the wfmc and the UML standard, and provide a view of how this integration can be achieved through the extension of the UML activity diagram. The extension proposed neither modifies nor restricts the original UML standard. A model built with this extension is easily translated to the wpdl. We show the extension of the UML activity diagram to include the concepts of concurrency and synchronization of workflow processes. In this way, the process definition in UML activity diagram may be interpreted by any wms.