Implementing a Case Management Modeling and Notation (CMMN) System using a Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) compliant repository

TL;DR

This paper explores how to implement a CMMN system using CMIS repositories, detailing two integration approaches, and providing pseudocode examples to facilitate adoption without extensive extensions.

Contribution

It introduces two practical methods for integrating CMMN with CMIS repositories, enabling easier adoption and implementation with minimal extensions.

Findings

Two integration alternatives for CMMN and CMIS detailed

Extensive pseudocode provided for implementation guidance

No extensions to CMIS needed, minor CMMN extensions proposed

Abstract

This paper describes how a Case Management Modeling and Notation (CMMN) implementation can use Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) to implement the CMMN information model. The interaction between CMMN and CMIS is described in detail, and two implementation alternatives are presented. An integration alternative where any external CMIS repository is used. This alternative is useful to process technology vendors looking to integrate with CMIS compliant repositories. An embedded alternative where a CMIS repository is embedded within the CMMN engine. This alternative is useful to content management vendors implementing CMMN. In both alternatives a CMIS folder is used as the case file containing the case instance data. The CMIS repository can also be used to store the CMMN models to take advantage of CMIS versioning and meta-data. Extensive Java pseudocode is provided as an example of how a CMMN implementation can use a CMIS repository to implement the CMMN information model. No extensions to CMIS are needed, and only minor extensions to CMMN are proposed.