This is an interesting time for the WfMC. It was founded during the fever years of Business Process Reengineering. Later, interest in workflow, as with BPR, seemed to wane. During that same time, however, companies like SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle were incorporating workflow engines into their packaged application suites, making the interest in workflow techniques more pervasive than ever. The recent interest in EAI, the Internet, Web Services, XML, and BAM have all combined, however, to make workflow a hot topic again.

Suddenly CEOs and CIOs are very interested in business processes. Both the Internet, in general, and discussions of Web Services, in particular, call for standard ways of defining and communicating about business processes. EAI vendors have grown prosperous helping companies integrate applications to enable them to interact with Web customers and business partners. Gartner has recently argued that Business Activity Modeling, or BAM, is a hot new IT concern. IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, SUN, BEA and CSC, among others, are interested in creating XML languages and business process management engines to automate business processes. Most observers understand that BPEL and BPML are really just the latest examples of the workflow approach. Suddenly everyone is interested in processes and workflow.

Over the years the WfMC has created a number of specifications. One might think that after nine years, the WfMC had defined its territory. In fact, however, it is more active than ever. During the past year, for example, it has released version 1.1 of it's Wf-XML standard, and of version 1.0 of it's new XML Process Definition Interface (WPDL). Wf-XML allows workflow tools to transfer data to each other via XML files. XPDL defines a metamodel for workflow processes and a way of importing and exporting via XML. In addition, the WfMC is working with the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) to define a Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) which will serve as a graphical way of representing XPDL (and other languages). In addition, individual members are working with the OMG to define a MOF-compliant business process model, and new standards for business rules.

All of the interest in workflow and business processes has created a demand for the latest information of workflow systems, workflow standards, the development of workflow applications, and the latest thinking on how workflow is likely to evolve. The 2003 Workflow Handbook provides all the answers in an authoritative manner.

The 2003 Workflow Handbook is divided into three sections. In the first, experts in various areas of workflow offer their opinions and observations on the latest developments. There are several good papers here. Connie Moore's (Giga) discussion of best practices is especially good, and Joreon Stoffele and Fred van Leeuwen's (DCE) discussion of the use of workflow in securities processing is an important article for those interested in financial process automation. The article on Business Processes and Business Rules, by Jean Faget (W4), Mike Marin (FileNet), Patrick Megard (ILOG), Vincent J. Owens (Cap Gemini Ernst & Young) and Laurent-Olivier Tarin (ILOG) is outstanding. They provide an excellent status report on how rule-based management systems are being used today and suggest how they will increasingly be used in the future. In addition, the article on enterprise infrastructure, by Mike D.Gilger (Identitech) presents several good ideas, and the article on Emerging Technologies by Jon Pyke, the Chair of the WfMC (and CTO of Staffware) provides a nice overview of the field as it stands today and where the market is heading.

The second section deals with workflow standards. Here a variety of authors offer basic explanations of the standards that are being developed. I especially liked the articles on B2B Interoperability by Alan Rickayzen (SAP) and Keith Sewnson (Fujitsu), and the introduction to XPDL by Arnaud Bezancon (ADVANTUS). Another particularly interesting article, to my mind, was the article by Stephen A. White (with SeeBeyond, when he wrote the article, and now with IBM) on XPDL and BPMN. White begins explaining the BPMN effort and illustrating some of the symbols that the task force has settled upon. Then he walks readers through an XPDL example and shows the mapping between the graphical diagram of a e-order process and its XPDL representation. David C Hollingsworth (Fujitsu) has compiled an update to the WfMC Glossary that takes all the recent activity into account. For readers who haven't looked at workflow systems for awhile, a quick review of the glossary might be the best way to begin this book.

A final section includes a directory of WfMC officers and a complete WfMC membership list.

This isn't a book one reads from cover to cover. It really is a handbook with an approximately 50 page workflow glossary, detailed information about the companies involved in the WfMC, and a series of articles that range from general to rather technical. As I have already suggested, however, workflow and business process automation are of great interest to lots of people in IT, and this book is the perfect way to get a good update on whatever aspect of workflow you are most interested in learning about.

If you are involved in workflow or business process automation, you'll want to read several chapters in this book and then you'll want to keep it on your bookshelf as a handy reference.

For the new practitioner the first two chapters of Section I clearly explain workflow and architectures. They are followed by six chapters on topics ranging from business process and process management issues, to web, peer-to-peer and XML architecture - all of which are important elements of workflow and process engineering.

Section II covers workflow standards as they relate to the work of the Workflow Management Coalition, and is completely up-to-date, especially with respect to WF-XML. Note: there are related standards flying about, such as BPEL4WS, WSCI, BPML, OASIS and a plethora of others - but many of those are marginally related to workflow at best, and at worst are political posturing among vendors and other organizations. This book sticks to a much narrower (and, in my opinion, purer, agenda-free) set of standards.

Section III is a collection of case studies from which the seasoned and new practitioner can both learn. I personally liked this section the most because of the different viewpoints and methods presented, all of which led to success and recognition for excellence in implementing workflow solutions.

The final section, IV, was of marginal interest to me - it's a collection of appendices that covers the Workflow Management Coalition organization, membership and briefs about the authors who contributed to this book.

In addition to this book I highly recommend the 2001 edition, which is filled with related information, none of which is out of date. In fact, instead of getting the book, get the CD ROM version titled "Workflow Handbook 2001 Companion CD ROM" (ISBN 0970350910), which contains the entire contents of the book in PDF format as well as much more content. If, like me, you are more interested in the case studies, the editor (Layna Fischer) has assembled four books of case studies: "Excellence in Practice: Innovation and Excellence in Workflow and Imaging" (ISBN 0964023350), "Excellence in Practice Vol II" (ISBN 0964023369), "Excellence in Practice Vol III" (ISBN 0964023385) and "Excellence in Practice Vol IV" (ISBN 0964023393).

If a CD ROM companion for this book is published as it was for the previous edition it would add considerable value to this book, but it's still an essential resource for anyone who I identified as the target audience.