Patent ID: 8229836

Claim:
A method for facilitating a business process communication, said method comprising: obtaining first business process data from at least one first trading participant, said first business process data comprising a set of transaction messages having a first data format in accordance with a first protocol for conducting business transactions used by said at least one first trading participant; processing said first business process data at a process management platform accessible via an interconnection fabric, wherein said process management platform is configured to manage a flow of said transaction messages and monitor said transaction messages, wherein said process management platform is configured to automatically determine at least one of a plurality of second trading participants to satisfy said first business process data; identifying a second protocol for conducting said business transactions used by said at least one of a plurality of second trading participants; generating second business process data from said first business process data, the second business process data comprising a set of transaction messages having a data format in accordance with said identified second protocol; transmitting, by a computer, said second business process data from said process management platform to said at least one of said plurality of second trading participants, wherein said first and second trading participants conduct said business transactions in accordance with their respective protocols for conducting business transactions, and wherein said process management platform is configured to process at least one proprietary transaction definition format; receiving, by a virtual trading participant, fictitious business process data from the first trading participant and acknowledging the fictitious business process data and replying to the first trading participant that the fictitious business process data has been acknowledged in order to enable the first trading participant to determine that the first trading participant is prepared to automatically transmit the first business data to complete said business transactions; testing operational characteristics and a connectivity of a currently trading participant connected to the process management platform, by utilizing the virtual trading participant to determine if the data defining individual business processes is in a uniform format understood by the process management platform; and utilizing the virtual trading participant to ensure compatibility with an identified version of the uniform format.