Chapter 1. Introduction

Table of Contents

What is Together Workflow Editor ?
Where to get the latest version
Together Workflow Editor Professional
Useful links

By the end of this chapter you will know the prerequisites for installation, how and where to download the latest release binaries and source codes of Together Workflow Editor, how to install it on MS Windows or Linux and be able to use the provided XPDL examples.

What is Together Workflow Editor ?

Together Workflow Editor is a graphical editor for creating, editing, managing and reviewing WfMC XPDL process definition files.

Workflow management is an evolving technology with lots of vendors claiming their approach is the best. We have chosen an approach which relies on WfMC and XPDL, thus supporting efforts to establish the standard. Together Workflow Editor is based on version 1.0 of the XPDL XML schema published by WfMC.

The editor makes creating and editing XPDL easy. It represents all XPDL elements graphically through property panels and a graph component to give the user a better understanding and an overview of the process definitions. Various functions help in finding specific activities, participants, applications, errors in the model, etc.

The final output of the editor is an XML file (using the standardized WfMC XPDL schema) which can then be interpreted and executed by all WfMC XPDL compliant workflow engines.

Together Workflow Editor accomplishes three main goals:

  • Reading of WfMC XPDL files (no matter from which tool they initially come from) from the filesystem (or a Wf-XML server in the Professional Edition)

  • Graphical representation and guided editing/modelling of process definitions

  • Writing of WfMC XPDL process definition XML files to the filesystem (or a Wf-XML server in the Professional Edition)