3.4.4 Specification of a Multiparty Collaboration

A Multiparty Collaboration is used when more than two trading partners are involved in a a collaboration. For example a buying company, a selling company and a broker company. The Business Process Specification Schema allows multi party collaboration. Figure 7 shows how the Business Process Specification Schema allows Multiparty Collaboration.

Figure 7: UML Diagram of a Multiparty Collaboration (Adapted from the Business Process Specification Schema document)

In the source code below a Multiparty Collaboration instance is shown. In the example code the reference Business Process is called DropShip. There are three parties involved in this Business Collaboration. The first party/partner is a Customer, the second a Retailer and the third DropShip Vendor. The code reveals how the different roles are taken by which partner. As mentioned above a Transaction always has a requesting role and a responding role.

<MultiPartyCollaboration name=''DropShip''>
        <BusinessPartnerRole name=''Customer''>
                <Performs initiatingRole=
                '//binaryCollaboration[@name=''Firm Order'']
                /InitiatingRole[@name=''buyer'']'/>
        </BusinessPartnerRole>
        <BusinessPartnerRole name=''Retailer''>
                <Performs respondingRole=
                '//binaryCollaboration[@name=''Firm Order'']
                /RespondingRole[@name=''seller'']'/>
                <Performs initiatingRole=
                '//binaryCollaboration[@name=''Product Fulfillment'']
                /InitiatingRole[@name=''buyer'']'/>
        </BusinessPartnerRole>
        <BusinessPartnerRole name=''DropShip Vendor''>
                <Performs respondingRole=
                '//binaryCollaboration[@name=''Product Fulfillment'']
                /RespondingRole[@name=''seller'']'/>
        </BusinessPartnerRole>
</MultiPartyCollaboration>

Next follows the specification of the Choreography.