19 Oracle Business Process Management

This chapter describes issues associated with Oracle Business Process Management (BPM). It includes the following topics:

Note:

The issues and workarounds listed here are those that were known at the time of the product's initial release to the public. Additional issues and workarounds may have been discovered since the initial release. To view the latest known issues associated with Oracle SOA Suite, BPM Suite, and related SOA technologies, go to the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/docs/aiasoarelnotes-196861.html.

19.1 General Issues and Workarounds

This section describes general issues and workarounds. It includes the following topics:

19.1.1 Oracle BPM Studio Issues

This section describes issues and workarounds for Oracle BPM Studio. It includes the following topics:

19.1.1.1 Do Not Edit the BPMN Process WSDLs directly

You must always use the Process Editor to edit a BPMN process. Do not edit the BPMN process WSDLs directly. Doing so does not allow you to save the changes and causes multiple error messages.

19.1.1.2 Cannot Edit Link Between BPMN Process and Business Rules in composite.xml

The business rules task is used to incorporate Oracle Business Rules within a BPMN process. You can specify the business rule used as part of the configuration properties for the business rules task.

However, you cannot edit this property in composite.xml. Use the Oracle BPM Studio user interface to edit or remove the reference to the business rule.

19.1.1.3 Deleting Services or References from the SOA Composite Does Not Delete the Customized Service or Reference

When you delete a customized service or a reference from the SOA Composite, Oracle BPM Studio does not delete the customized component from the business catalog. Before building the BPM project you must manually delete the customized component from the business catalog.

19.1.1.4 The XPath Data Association Editor Does Not Validate Expressions

The XPath Data Association Editor does not validate the expressions you use to assign values to arguments and data objects. You must ensure that the XPath expressions you use in an XPath data association are valid. Using invalid XPath expressions causes errors at run time.

19.1.1.5 Deleting a Reference from the SOA Composite Does Not Remove It from the Human Task Payload Configuration

Deleting a reference from the SOA Composite does not delete the reference from the payload of the Human Tasks that use the reference.

After you delete a reference, you must remove the deleted reference from the Human Tasks using it.

19.1.1.6 Data Associations for Elements of a Collection Are Not Available

Data associations for elements of a collection are not available in this release. To assign a value to an element of a collection, use XLS transformations.

19.1.1.7 Do Not Define Multiple Catch Events for the Same Error or Message

Do not define multiple catch events for the same error or message. Only the first catch event fires; the remaining catch events are ignored.

19.1.1.8 Changes to a Deployed Organizational Unit Not Supported

When a BPM Project is deployed, any organizational units that do not exist are created. However, when redeploying a project, if any existing organizational units are changed, the changes will not be updated.

These changes must be made by a business administrator using Oracle BPM Workspace as described in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.

19.1.1.9 enableAutoClaim Property Is Set to True in Human Tasks Created Using Oracle BPM Suite

When you create a Human Task using Oracle BPM Suite, the enableAutoClaim property is set to true by default.

19.1.1.10 Configuring Data Associations for XML Schema Elements Based on Simple Data Types

When configuring data associations for a flow object, you can map simple XML elements based on simple types to compatible basic data objects.

19.1.1.11 The Initiator Node List Shows the Names of the Possible Initiator Flow Objects

In the implementation properties of message events and send and receive tasks, the Initiator Node list shows the name of the initiator flow object. A BPMN process might contain multiple flow objects with the same name. It is a good practice to use a different name for all of the flow objects in the process. Not doing so causes the Initiator Node list to contain multiple items with the same name, making it difficult to identify the one you want to select.

19.1.1.12 The Pushback Task Operation Is Not Supported In an Aggregation Context

The Approval Management pushback task operation is not supported in an aggregation context. Use the request for information task operation instead.

19.1.1.13 Must Assign Application Roles from the OracleBPMProcessRolesApp Context

Using Oracle BPM Studio, you can map the roles defined in your process to application roles defined by Oracle WebLogic Server.

However, you must ensure that the application roles you use are defined as part of the OracleBPMProcessRolesApp application context. Only application roles defined in OracleBPMProcessRolesApp are used at run time.

19.1.1.14 Adding Counter Marks to Subprocesses is Not Available

Adding counter marks to subprocesses is not available for this release.

The available workaround is to add the counter mark to add an activity immediately after the start event in the subprocess and add a counter mark to this activity.

19.1.1.15 You Must Manually Remove Additional Slashes from the XSD file When Defining Human Tasks Assignments Based on Business Rules

In BPM Suite if you define a human task assignments based on Business Rules, then you must edit the XSD of the decision service to remove the additional slashes from the import statements.

For example, you must replace the following statement:

schemaLocation="oramds:///soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd"

with the following import statement:

schemaLocation="oramds:/soa/shared/workflow/TaskEvidenceService.xsd"

19.1.1.16 The Number of Business Indicators Per Project is Limited

You must not define more than twenty business indicators per project. The average length of the name of the business indicator must be 15 characters.

19.1.1.17 Oracle BPM Studio Permits Users to Assign Invalid Application Roles to Swimlanes

When assigning roles to swimlanes using Oracle BPM Studio, users can assign roles based on application roles that are not part of OracleBPMProcessRolesApp. This causes errors when deploying the Oracle BPM project.

As a workaround, you should ensure that the application roles you assign to swim lane roles uses OracleBPMProcessRolesApp only.

19.1.1.18 Cannot Import a BPEL Process to a BPA Server Multiple Times

You can only import a BPEL process to a BPA server one time. After you import a BPEL process to a BPA Server, it is associated to that particular BPA instance.

19.1.1.19 Starting an Event Subprocess from the BPM Process That Contains It Is Not Supported

You cannot start an event subprocess by sending a message event from within the BPM process that contains the event subprocess. Because this release does not support correlations, a process instance cannot send event messages to itself.

If you start an event subprocess by sending a message event from within the BPM process that contains it, then the BPM Engine does not run the event subprocess and it may stop responding.

19.1.1.20 Sorting the Process Instances in a Guided Business Process by Instance ID Does Not Order Them in Numerical Order

Sorting the list of process instances in a guided business process by their ID does not order them in numerical order.

The sorting algorithm used to order process instances in guided business processes does not compare the whole number. It compares the first digit in the number ID.

For example, sorting he following list of process IDs: 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 12

produces the following result: 1, 11, 12, 20, 3, 5

19.1.1.21 Timer Start Events that Specify Dates Previous or Equal to the Deployment Date Are Not Triggered

The BPM Engine does not trigger timer start events that specify a date previous or equal to the deployment date.

19.1.1.22 Limitations When Calling a BPMN Process from a Spring Component

The following limitations apply when calling a BPMN process from a Spring component:

  • You cannot call a BPMN process from a Spring component that does not declare an interface.

  • You cannot create a Spring component reference based on a BPMN process interface. Currently Oracle BPM Studio does not provide a way to create Java classes based on BPMN process instances.

  • You must name the WSDL used to represent the Java interface of a Spring component with the same name of the Java interface. For example, if the name of the Java interface is SpringInterface.java then the name of the WSDL must be SpringInterface.wsdl.

  • The option Append Suffix in the Update WSDL Interface action is not supported because the name of the WSDL must match the name of the Java interface. If the user selects this option, then BPM Studio shows an error message stating this feature is not enabled.

19.1.1.23 Patching an SOA Application with Shared Resource Bundles

You can patch an SOA application with shared resource bundles so that you can reference resources in a shared location, instead of creating new resource bundles.

To patch an SOA application with shared resource bundles:

  1. Create the java resource bundle files containing key-value pairs of the display fields.

  2. Compile the files and bundle the resource bundle classes into a jar.

    The following example shows a packaging structure:

    resource/oracle/bpel/activityguide/resource/AGResourceBundle.class
    resource/oracle/bpel/activityguide/resource/AGResourceBundle_fr.class
    
  3. Deploy the resource bundle to MDS:

    1. In Oracle JDeveloper, create a new Project deployment profile of archive type Jar.

    2. In the Contributors section, add the resource bundle you created.

    3. Save the profile.

    4. Create a new application deployment profile of archive type SOA Bundle.

    5. In the Contributors section, add the Jar profile you created to this SOA Bundle.

      If required, combine with SOA-SAR profile for combined deployment.

    6. Save the profile.

    7. Deploy the SOA bundle from Oracle JDeveloper to an SOA Server.

  4. In Oracle JDeveloper edit the composite.xml file.

  5. In the Structure window, right click the composite element.

  6. Select Insert Inside Composite.

  7. Select Property.

  8. Set name of the property to oracle.soa.composite.classloader.ext.dir and the value of the property to the package structure of the jar you created.

    The following XML fragment shows how to set the required property:

    <property name="oracle.soa.composite.classloader.ext.dir">
            /apps/resource
    </property>
    
  9. Localize the display fields of the Guided Business Process in Oracle JDeveloper.

    • Choose External option during translation to indicate that an external resource bundle is used.

    • Provide the fully qualified name of the class in the resource bundle field. For example: oracle.bpel.activityguide.resource.AGResourceBundle

19.1.2 Oracle BPM Process Composer Issues

This section describes issues and workarounds for Oracle BPM Process Composer. It includes the following topics:

19.1.2.1 Deploy Option Not Available in Approval WorkFlow Browser

When you specify an approver who also has deployment permissions, the user will not initially see the deployment option. To be able to deploy the Oracle BPM project, the project must first be approved for deployment using the Oracle BPM WorkSpace application. Once the approval workflow is complete, the option to deploy the project is available.

19.1.2.2 Chinese, Korean, and Character Input Problems in Flow Object Labels

The Adobe Flash Player has a bug related to input for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese characters. This causes problems in Oracle Business Process Composer when editing flow object labels within the process editor.

For more information see: http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-501.

To resolve this issue, use Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7.

19.1.2.3 Initiator Pattern Not Permitted within a Subprocess

You should not use a user task with an initiator pattern within a subprocess. This is currently allowed during design and deployment using Oracle Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio. Oracle BPM WorkSpace will show a link within a running process, but this link is invalid.

19.1.2.4 Supported Version of Adobe Flash on Linux Systems

Some Oracle Business Process Composer user interface elements are not displayed when using Linux.

As a workaround, you must install Adobe Flash, version 10.1 or greater.

19.1.2.5 Text Field Does Not Display Full Value for Participant Names

When creating or editing human tasks using Oracle Business Process Composer, the text filed displaying the Value column is not wide enough to display the all the data.

As a workaround, you can view the full text by positioning the mouse over the cell to display the tooltip.

19.1.2.6 Calling a BPMN Process from a Spring Component Is Not Supported

Currently you cannot use Oracle Business Process Composer to define how a Spring component calls a BPMN process.

19.1.3 Oracle BPM Workspace and Process Spaces Issues

This section describes issues and workarounds for Oracle BPM Workspace and Process Spaces. It includes the following topics:

19.1.3.1 Process Workspace Login Error When Using External LDAP Directory

If you are using an external LDAP directory, you may receive the following error message when logging in to Process Workspace: "No Role found matching the criteria".

This may occur under the following conditions:

  • You have used Oracle WebLogic Server Console to configure a user base and a group base to search for and authenticate users.

  • The user base or group base has a referral to another user base or group base.

In this case, the Process Workspace identity service does not list the users or groups and, as a result, the login to Process Workspace fails to authenticate the user.

This can occur when there are two bases to be searched, one for users and one for groups, but the UR API is not properly set.

To resolve this, in the Oracle WebLogic Server Console, provide a root-level search base for both users and groups so that referrals are resolved automatically since you are providing a higher node in the search tree.

If this solution degrades performance as a result of a substantially larger search base, you can limit this search by editing specific property in the jps-config.xml located at domain-home/config/fmwconfig/.

The following is an example of an edited jps-config.xmlfile:

jps-config.xml
<extendedProperty>
<name>user.search.bases</name>
<values>
<value>cn=users1,dc=us,dc=oracle,dc=com</value>
<value>cn=users2,dc=us,dc=oracle,dc=com</value>
...........
</values>
</extendedProperty>
<extendedProperty>
<name>group.search.bases</name>
<values>
<value>cn=groups1,dc=us,dc=oracle,dc=com</value>
<value>cn=groups2,dc=us,dc=oracle,dc=com</value>
..................
</values>
</extendedProperty>

19.1.3.2 Taskflow Links for Undeployed Processes Are Visible in Process Workspace

If a project is deployed with its taskflows and then it is undeployed, it remains visible in the Applications panel of Oracle Business Process Management Workspace. To make it no longer visible, clear it from either Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console or the WFTASKDISPLAY table in the SOAINFRA schema.

19.1.3.3 Process Workspace Does not Open a New Window for Newly Created Task

This problem occurs under the following conditions:

  • Your browser is set to use either Portuguese or Italian

  • You as an administrator set the Work Items panel to display the language specified by the browser

  • You launch a new process instance from the Applications panel of Process Workspace

The window for that process instance does not appear in the right pane.

To resolve this problem, do the following:

  1. Go to the Weblogic console, deployments and look for the oracle.bpm.client library and check the path to the jar file of the library.

  2. In that path there is another jar oracle.bpm.web-resources.jar that contains the localized resource messages; make a backup copy of it.

  3. Unpack oracle.bpm.web-resources.jar using unzip or tar command and edit both of the following files:

    • oracle/bpm/workspace/model/msg/WorkspaceMsg_pt_BR.properties

    • oracle/bpm/workspace/model/msg/WorkspaceMsg_pt.properties

  4. Look for a label CANNOT_OPEN_POPUP and correct the message by replacing \n with \\n.

    The label should look like this:

    CANNOT_OPEN_POPUP:       N\u00E3o foi poss\u00EDvel abrir a janela pop-up de
    execu\u00E7\u00E3o.\\nSe seu browser for configurado para bloquear pop-ups,
    voc\u00EA deve adicionar uma exce\u00E7\u00E3o a esta
    aplica
    \u00
    E7\u00E3o.\nUma ins
    t\u00
    E2ncia que pode ter sido criada apesar do
    fluxo de tarefas associado n\u00E3o ter sido executado. 
    
  5. Create the JAR file—using either Winzip or the tar command—with the changes and replace the original version of the JAR.

  6. Restart Oracle WebLogic Server.

19.1.3.4 Oracle WebCenter 11g Patchset 2 with Process Spaces Does Not Work with Process Workspace Patchset 3

Both components must be 11g Patchset 3.

19.1.3.5 When Documentation Server is Down, Launching a Group Space for an Instance Causes Error "Instance 'null' is not available"

If you have a Process Spaces group space open and you bring down the documentation service, then, when you launch instance group space for an instance, you see that an instance group space is created. However, when you open the instance group space, you receive the error message "Instance 'null' is not available". This happens because the newly created group space does not have the custom attribute instanceId.

For the workaround, the administrator should do the following:

  1. Navigate to Settings in the process instance group space.

  2. Navigate to custom attributes.

  3. Create the custom attribute instanceId and associate the process instance identifier as the value.

19.1.3.6 File Size Limit for Process Attachment Is 2 MB

If you attach a file to a process, the file must be no larger than two megabytes.

19.1.3.7 For Large Number of Users Set Timeout to 5 Minutes Maximum

If you have a large number of users, set the timeout to no more than 5 minutes. To do this, expand the BPM Workspace .ear file, open the web.xml file, and update the timeout parameter.

19.1.4 Oracle BPMN Administration

This section describes issues and workarounds for Oracle BPMN Administration. This section contains the following:

19.1.4.1 ORA-00001: unique constraint (SH_SOAINFRA.BPM_AUDIT_QUERY_PK) violated when exceeding the Quota

If you encounter the following error in the log file:

java.sql.SQLIntegrityConstraintViolationException: ORA-00001: unique constraint (SH_SOAINFRA.BPM_AUDIT_QUERY_PK) violated when exceeding the Quota

then increase the quota by doing the following:

  1. Run the following SQL command:

    update BPM_AUDIT_SEQUENCE set seq_count = ( select max(query_id) from bpm_audit_query) +1 where seq_name = 'AUDIT_QUERY_SEQ';

  2. Restart the server.

19.1.4.2 Discrepancy Between Message Recovery Status and Composite Status

In some contexts, when a message recovery is performed successfully, the composite status displayed in Oracle Enterprise Manager is still show as Faulted.

This occurs in the following context:

  1. Process A calls Process B with the DenyAll policy attached.

  2. Process A is invoked, but any messages to Process B are not delivered due to the DenyAll setting.

  3. The DenyAll policy on Process B is disabled, and the errors are recovered.

  4. The audit trail shows that the recovery was successful, however the composite status is still marked as Faulted.

There is no workaround for this issue.

19.2 Configuration Issues and Workarounds

There are no known configuration issues or workarounds for Oracle Business Process Management at this time.

19.3 Documentation Errata

There are no known documentation errata for Oracle Business Process Management at this time.