Abstract: In a complex workflow environment, a data-type-definition (DTD) schema drives a dynamic business component instantiation and execution framework that integrates documents with data and information created by various applications, potentially operating on several different platforms, enabling complex workflow and collaboration to occur over a communication network such as the Internet. The DTD execution language is preferably an industry specific XML-based tag set that defines business component instantiation, execution, input and output parameters, workflow, user profile, and collaboration specifications for a given task or data in a complex workflow process. Business and data processing components available on systems both within and outside the complex workflow system are called upon to provide the processing, interpretation, and transformation functions for the complex workflow system.