Using GXL for exchanging business process models

The GXL Graph eXchange Language is an XML-based standard exchange language for sharing graph data between tools. GXL can be customized to exchange application specific types of graphs. This is done by exchanging both, the instance graph, representing the data itself, and the schema, representing the graph structure. Business process models are usually depicted in a graph-like form. This paper describes a novel application of GXL to the exchange of business process models. It is shown, how to customize GXL to exchange business process models depicted as Event-driven Process Chains and Workflow nets as examples for the control flow part of business process models. Each level of modeling is exemplarily demonstrated from the metaschemas down to instances of graphs.