Java Reference
In-Depth Information
The first is Active Endpoints. It was a leader in the specification and one of the first to market
with an implementation. If you are using Active Endpoints designer and server, you should be
ready to use the extensions for humans.
Another vendor with a full-blown production-quality product is IBM. It actually originated
this idea with SAP in a whitepaper it published in July 2005 called “BPEL4People.” Origin-
ally envisioned as a set of extensions to the BPEL 1.0 specification, the WS-HumanTask spe-
cification grew out of that 18-page kernel.
NOTE
You can read the “BPEL4People” whitepaper at
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/soft-
ware/dw/specs/ws-bpel4people/BPEL4People_white_paper.pdf
.
Note that many practitioners now
conflate the terms “BPEL4People” and “HumanTask” in conversation.
Because of SAP's early involvement authoring the specification, its NetWeaver product also
provides an implementation. Companies that offer SOA suites, such as Oracle, SoftwareAG,
and TIBCO, all offer commercial BPM engines that support workflows with human tasks.
These BPM engines also provide advanced functionality, such as automatic generation of
Ajax-based user-interaction screens.
However, if you're looking to try it out, you might start with Intalio, a company that makes
an Eclipse-based designer and a server that supports BPEL, BPMN, and BPEL4People, both
of which are free to get started with. Check out the free Intalio-based BPMN modeler at
ht-
