Document Engineering: Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services [Paperback]

Robert J. Glushko (Author), Tim McGrath (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 2008

Much of the business transacted on the Web today takes place through information exchanges made possible by using documents as interfaces. For example, what seems to be a simple purchase from an online bookstore actually involves at least three different business collaborations -- between the customer and the online catalog to select a book; between the bookstore and a credit card authorization service to verify and charge the customer's account; and between the bookstore and the delivery service with instructions for picking up and delivering the book to the customer. Document engineering is needed to analyze, design, and implement these Internet information exchanges. This book is an introduction to the emerging field of document engineering.The authors, both leaders in the development of document engineering and other e-commerce initiatives, analyze document exchanges from a variety of perspectives. Taking a qualitative view, they look at patterns of document exchanges as components of business models; looking at documents in more detail, they describe techniques for analyzing individual transaction patterns and the role they play in the overall business process. They describe techniques for analyzing, designing, and encoding document models, including XML, and discuss the techniques and architectures that make XML a unifying technology for the next generation of e-business applications. Finally, they go beyond document models to consider management and strategic issues -- the business model, or the vision, that the information exchanged in these documents serves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Document Engineering provides a thorough, common-sense approach to designing the documents used in service-oriented architectures. Well written and packed with examples, it is timely reading for architects, developers, and managers." Ronald Bourret, author of XML and Databases

"*Document Engineering* provides a thorough, common-sense approach to designing the documents used in service-oriented architectures. Well written and packed with examples, it is timely reading for architects, developers, and managers."--Ronald Bourret, author of "XML and Databases"

About the Author

Tim McGrath is an independent consultant and is Chair of the Universal Business Language Library Content Subcommittee. With collaborator Robert J. Glushko, he maintains the Doc or Die blog.

Robert J. Glushko is Adjunct Professor at the School of Information Management and Systems, University of California, Berkeley. With collaborator Tim McGrath, he maintains the Doc or Die blog.

Product Details

• Paperback: 728 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (January 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262572451
• ISBN-13: 978-0262572453
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,165,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Roadmap for How To Upgrade All Businesses to the Internet Era, December 27, 2005

By 

D. Sunderhaft (cleveland, oh) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Document Engineering: Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services (Hardcover)

At the end of the day, business success comes down to three things: a product, the market, and the business processes. The business processes consist of people, tools and workflow. You can have a great product in a great market but if you have bad business processes...you can forget about it. Many organizations have tried to implement Six Sigma to ensure highly effective business processes. The key to six sigma is data. Data tells you how effective your processes are. For example, data will tell you things like: how many parts per million are defective, how many invoices per million were inaccurate, how many orders shipped late, how long it takes to execute an order once a contract is signed, how long a customer support rep spent on the phone, etc......Once you have the data, evaluating the problem and recommeding a solution is easy. The hard part however is getting the data. You can either collect the data manually over time or if you have the infrastructure you can collect it electronically through software. Unfortunately if you have to collect the data manually, it takes a long time, effort and money. If you collect data electronically it enables no additional time and provides real time visibility and the ability to implement positive changes on the fly. So how do you go from a manual data collection process to an automated data collection process? That's what this book, Document Engineering, will help you figure out. I have owned this book for about 2 months and it has been on my desk since. I continuously refer to it for insights on how to develop a clear plan on how to implement a data collection infrastructure that will help to more effectively manage business processes.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very relevant for anyone designing Web Services, August 4, 2006

By 

Zahid N. Ahmed "Zahid Ahmed" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Document Engineering: Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services (Hardcover)

Component modeling, analysis of information exchanges, and

application services usage patterns are critical areas to focus

on in designing internal and external interfaces exposed by

enterprises, ASPs/SaaS, and other consumer-oriented internet

services. We have many good examples of scalable, evolvable,

easy to integrate and interoperable Web Services API in the

consumer-oriented internet industry currently. The areas

covered in the DOCUMENT ENGINEERING is very relevant to

architects, product managers, developers and technology

executives. I especially found the design patterns and process

discussion helpful. I would recommend this book to anyone

interested in services oriented application platforms, internal

and external enterprise integration to employ in the design

phase since it covers an effective methodology of designing

interfaces based on the document-centric component model.

Zahid Ahmed

San Jose, CA

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and Practical, March 28, 2006

By 

Marin County (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Document Engineering: Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services (Hardcover)

Document Engineering is a practical exploration of the role documents play in the nexus of contracts that drive modern businesses. The interdisciplinary approach put forward here, taking document engineering out of the realm of pure software engineering, is eye opening and provides some real insight into what it takes to make Service Oriented Architectures work in the real world. This is an absolute must read book for anyone seriously considering developing an XML based document integration strategy.