| Oracle® Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.4) Part Number E16691-06 |
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PDF · Mobi · ePub |
| Oracle® Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.4) Part Number E16691-06 |
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PDF · Mobi · ePub |
This chapter describes how to use Oracle Business Process Composer to customize and extend Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) processes. Several Oracle Fusion applications use BPMN processes to define process flows within the application. This chapter also describes how to edit BPMN processes by creating and modifying BPM projects based on project templates and deploying those projects to runtime.
This chapter includes the following sections:
Section 7.4, "Saving an Oracle BPM Project to the BPM Repository"
Section 7.6, "Configuring Oracle Fusion Applications to Use BPMN Processes"
The Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) product families of Oracle Fusion Applications use Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) processes to define some of the process flows used within their applications.
BPMN is a standard notation for modeling the behavior of business processes. It enables process analysts to create graphical models of a business process. The Oracle Business Process Management Suite provides an environment for implementing BPMN processes by enabling process developers to integrate them with other systems and services. The Oracle BPM Suite also provides a runtime environment for integrating the running processes within Oracle Fusion Applications. For general information on BPMN, see the "Modeling Business Processes with Oracle BPM" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
Business Process Composer enables you to customize the BPMN processes used within Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management and Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management. To customize these processes you must create, modify and deploy Oracle BPM projects created from a project templates. BPMN processes are contained within a BPM project. BPM projects contain all of the resources required for a functioning BPM application, including BPMN processes and SOA artifacts such as business rules and human tasks.
Oracle Fusion applications provide default project templates that you can use to create new process flows. See the product-specific documentation in Oracle Fusion Applications Help for more information on the default BPM project templates provided by Oracle Fusion Applications.
For general information on working with project templates, see the "Introduction to Project Templates" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
A BPM project template is pre-populated with all of the required resources for implementing BPMN processes within an Oracle Fusion application. This includes the BPMN processes that define the process flow as well as the necessary technical components that enable the processes to communicate with other parts of the application.
After customizing a BPM project, you can deploy it to runtime in one of several ways. See Section 7.5, "Deploying an Oracle BPM Project" for more information.
The technical components contained within a BPM project are called the business catalog. The business catalog contains various reusable services that a BPMN process can use to connect to other components of the application, including other processes, systems, and databases.
The business catalog contains the following reusable components:
Table 7-1 Business Catalog Components Available in Business Process Composer
| Business Catalog Component | Description |
|---|---|
|
Services |
Services are used to connect a BPMN process with other processes, systems, and services, including BPEL processes, databases. See the "How to Create New Services in the Business Catalog" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for more information. |
|
Human tasks |
Human tasks enable you to define how end users interact with your BPMN processes. Human tasks are implemented in a BPMN process using the user task. See the "Adding User Interaction to Your Process" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management. |
|
Business rules |
Oracle business rules are statements that describe business policies or describe key business decisions. See the "Introduction to the Business Rules Task" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for information on implementing business rules within a BPMN process. |
Oracle Fusion applications provide multiple tools for customizing and extending BPMN processes. These tools are described in Table 7-2.
Table 7-2 Oracle Tools for Customizing and Extending BPMN Processes
| This tool... | Enables you to... |
|---|---|
|
Business Process Composer |
Customize BPMN processes by creating and deploying BPM projects based on project templates. This functionality is described in the current chapter. |
|
Oracle BPM Studio (JDeveloper) |
Customize project templates. See Chapter 13, "Customizing and Extending Oracle BPM Project Templates." |
|
Oracle SOA Composer |
Customize business rules, domain value maps, and approval configuration and assignment rules at runtime. See Section 12.2, "Customizing SOA Composites" for more information. These customizations are performed directly on a running application. They do not require redeployment of the BPM project containing the BPMN process. |
|
Oracle BPM Worklist |
Customize approval configuration and assignment rules. See Section 12.2, "Customizing SOA Composites" for more information. These customizations are performed directly to a running application. They do not require redeployment of the BPM project containing the BPMN process. |
There are two types of runtime customization that you can make to BPMN processes. These are described in the following sections.
BPMN processes utilize multiple SOA components, including business rules and approval workflow. Using the Oracle SOA Composer and Oracle BPM Worklist, you can customize the following components used by the BPMN processes of a running Oracle Fusion application:
Oracle business rules
Domain value maps
Approval assignment rules in human workflows such as customizing the approval flow for a specific customer.
These customizations can be made directly to a running Oracle Fusion application without having to redeploy the BPM project. See Section 12.2, "Customizing SOA Composites" for information on using Oracle SOA Composer or Oracle BPM Worklist to make these customizations.
Note:
Any changes you make to the deployed, running BPMN processes of an Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management application will not be preserved if you later redeploy the BPM project that contains them.
Using Business Process Composer, you can make the following customizations to a BPM project created from a project template:
Customize an existing BPMN process.
Create new BPMN processes.
Create simple data objects.
Create and modify some business catalog components.
Table 7-3 lists which business catalog components can be customized or created using Business Process Composer.
Table 7-3 List of Business Catalog Components
| Business Catalog Component | Can be created using Business Process Composer? | Can be customized using Business Process Composer? |
|---|---|---|
|
Business rules |
No |
Yes |
|
Human tasks |
Yes You can create human tasks using Business Process Composer, however not all functionality of a human task can be customized. |
Yes |
|
Services |
Yes |
Yes |
See Section 7.2, "Creating an Oracle BPM Project" for information on creating a new BPM project based on a project template.
Changes to the business catalog that cannot be made using Business Process Composer must be made to the project template using Oracle BPM Studio. See Section 7.1.3, "What You Cannot Do with BPMN Processes at Runtime" for more information.
Often, it is necessary to make changes to a BPMN process that cannot be performed using Business Process Composer. The following tasks must be performed using JDeveloper:
Modify project templates
Create or customize some business catalog components, including:
Configuring advanced properties of web services
Creating new adapters and mediators
Creating new business rules
Creating or customizing errors
Configuring advanced features of human tasks, including:
Complex assignment support
Auto-generated task flow
Business rules within human tasks
Create complex data objects
To create or customize these components, process developers must modify the project template and republish it to the Oracle BPM repository. After a project template is revised, you can use Business Process Composer to create and deploy BPM projects. See Chapter 13, "Customizing and Extending Oracle BPM Project Templates" for more information.
Before customizing BPMN processes using Business Process Composer, you should be familiar with the Oracle Fusion application architecture that enables customization, as described in Chapter 1, "Customizing and Extending Oracle Fusion Applications."
You should also understand the typical workflows for customization and extensibility, as described in Chapter 2, "Understanding the Customization Development Lifecycle."
You should be familiar with how to model business processes using the Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) standard. See the "Modeling Business Processes with Oracle BPM" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
To create and deploy projects based on project templates, you must be granted the correct permissions by your security administrator. See the "Performing Administrative Tasks" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for more information.
How you access Business Process Composer depends on which Oracle Fusion application you are using:
To access Business Process Composer from Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management, access the Business Process Composer task by choosing Setup and Maintenance from the Administration menu in the global area of Oracle Fusion Applications and searching for the task.
To access Business Process Composer from Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management:
Access CRM Application Composer
To access CRM Application Composer, in the Navigator menu, choose Application Composer.
To edit or create business processes, you will need the correct privileges. Please contact your security administrator for details.
Access Business Process Composer
To access Business Process Composer from CRM Application Composer, click Business Processes as shown in Figure 7-1.
Figure 7-1 Actions Menu of the CRM Application Composer
After selecting one of the above, the Business Process Composer login screen appears. For more information, see the "Signing On to Business Process Composer" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
To create a new business process select Create from the Actions menu.
To modify an existing business process select a process from the list, then select Update from the Actions menu.
You can use Business Process Composer to customize or extend BPMN processes. BPMN processes are contained within an Oracle BPM project. After launching Business Process Composer the first step in modifying a BPMN process is to create a new project based on a project template or to open an existing BPM project.
Task: Create a New BPM Project Based on a Project Template
Oracle Fusion applications do not ship with running BPMN processes out-of-the-box. In order to integrate BPMN processes within Oracle Fusion applications, you must create a new BPM project based on a project template, deploy the project to runtime, then configure the Oracle Fusion application to use the BPMN processes of the deployed BPM project.
Business Process Composer enables you to create new BPM projects based on project templates. For information on creating a new BPM project, see the "How to Create a New Project From a Project Template" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
Refer to the product-specific documentation in Oracle Fusion Applications Help for a list of the default BPM project templates provided by Oracle Fusion Applications. By default, project templates are stored in the Templates folder of the BPM repository.
Task: Open an Existing BPM Project
If you have already created a new BPM project based on a template, you can continue to customize the project before deploying it to runtime.
For information on opening an existing BPM project, see the "How to Open a Project Using the Project Browser" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
After creating a new BPM project based on a project template, you can modify the BPMN processes within the project. Additionally, you can customize the business catalog components within the BPM project.
Task: Open a BPMN Process
See the "How to Open a Business Process" section of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for information on opening a BPMN process.
Task: Customize a BPMN Process
You can alter the flow of your BPMN process by adding, removing, or modifying BPMN flow objects.
See the "Working with Flow Elements" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for more information on using the process editor to modify BPMN processes.
See the "Modeling Business Processes with Oracle BPM" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for specific information on BPMN flow objects.
Task: Assign Business Catalog Components to a BPMN Flow Object
You can use Business Process Composer to assign reusable services from the business catalog to different BPMN flow objects.
The business catalog components and their corresponding flow objects are shown in Table 7-4.
Table 7-4 BPMN Flow Objects and Their Corresponding Services
| BPMN Flow Object | Business Catalog Component |
|---|---|
|
User task |
Human tasks |
|
Service task |
Services, including web services and adapters |
|
Business rules task |
Business rules |
See the "The Business Catalog" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for more information on working with reusable services and the business catalog.
Task: Add Milestones to the Activity Guide
The activity guide of a BPM project defines a set of milestones. Each BPM project contains one activity guide. An activity guide can contain multiple milestones.
A milestone is a specific set of tasks that the process participant has to complete. A milestone is complete when the user successfully runs a specific set of tasks in the milestone.
Each milestone is a defined by a set of human workflow tasks. Each human workflow task is itself a task flow that may require the collaboration of multiple participants in various roles.
See the "Using Guided Business Processes to Set Project Milestones" section in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management. for information on creating milestones.
Task: Customize Business Rules
Business rules enable dynamic decisions to be made at runtime that allow you to automate policies, computations, and reasoning while separating rule logic from underlying application code.
Note:
You can use Business Process Composer to modify business rules within an Oracle BPM project. These changes are made to the runtime application when the project is deployed.
You can use the Oracle SOA Composer to make runtime changes directly to the runtime environment, without deploying a project. See Section 12.2, "Customizing SOA Composites" for more information making runtime changes to a BPMN process.
For more information about customizing rules using Business Process Composer, see the "Using Oracle Business Rules" chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
Task: Create or Customize Human Tasks
Human tasks enable you to integrate human interaction with connectivity to systems and services as part of an end-to-end process flow. Human tasks are responsible for handling all interactions with the users or groups participating in the business process.
Using Business Process Composer, you can create and customize human tasks. See the "Working with Human Tasks" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for information on creating and configuring human tasks.
Task: Customize Expressions
Expressions are used to evaluate the data used within your process. Different flow objects use expressions to determine which path within the process to follow.
Expressions are used to configure the following BPMN elements:
Conditional Sequence Flows
Complex Gateways
Timer Events
Data Associations
Loop Markers
Multi-Instance Markers
User Task Advanced Properties
You can customize the expressions used within a BPMN process using Business Process Composer.
See the "Working with Expressions" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
You can save the changes you make to a BPM project to the BPM repository. In addition to saving your work in progress, saving a project in the repository enables you to share BPM projects with process developers using Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio.
The BPM repository can also be used to share project templates created in Oracle BPM Studio. In the BPM repository, projects and project templates are stored in the following default folder:
Table 7-5 Default Location of BPM Projects and Project Templates in the BPM Repository
| Type | Location |
|---|---|
|
BPM Projects |
/bpm/drafts |
|
BPM Project Templates |
/bpm/templates |
Within these default folders you can create additional subfolders to organize your projects and project templates.
Task: Save a Project
See the "How to Save Changes to a Project" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for information on how to save a project to the BPM repository.
After creating a new BPM project, you must deploy it to runtime in order for the BPMN processes contained within it to be accessible to Oracle Fusion applications.
After customizing a project and publishing it, you must deploy the project to runtime. After the project is deployed, the BPMN processes within it are accessible to the Oracle Fusion applications that implement them.
Task: Deploy a BPM Project
There are three methods of deploying a BPM project to Oracle Fusion applications using Business Process Composer. The specific method you use depends on whether you are in a production or test environment:
Using a SAR file
This is the recommended deployment method if you are deploying a BPM project to a production environment. A SAR file is an archive of a SOA composite application that, like a BPM project, contains all of t he required resources of a deployable application.
You can use Business Process Composer to export a BPM project as a SAR file. See the "How to Deploy a project to runtime" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management.
After the project is exported as a SAR file, your system administrator must deploy it to runtime using Oracle Enterprise Manager.
Using a deployment plan
You can use Business Process Composer to generate a deployment plan for your project. Like a SAR file, system administrators can use a deployment plan to deploy a BPM project to runtime.
See the "How to Generate a Deployment Plan" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for information on generating a deployment plan using Business Process Composer.
Directly from Business Process Composer
You can deploy a BPM project to runtime directly from Business Process Composer. See the "How to Deploy a Project to Run Time" section in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for information on deploying a BPM project to runtime.
In order to deploy project using Business Process Composer you must be granted the correct permission by your system administrator.
Note:
The initial deployment of a BPM project cannot be performed using Business Process Composer. The first time you deploy a project, you should use one of the other deployment procedures. This is because projects stored in the BPM repository contain abstract references to application resources. When deploying a BPM project using a SAR file, these abstract references are modified to point directly to Oracle Fusion application resources.
When deploying a new version of a BPM project, any runtime changes you made to the project using Oracle SOA Composer or Oracle BPM Worklist will not be preserved after redeploying the BPM project.
You may want to deploy a BPM project using the same name as the project and project template to make it easier to associate the deployed project with its design time version
Task: Configure Oracle Fusion Applications to Use BPMN Processes
After deploying a BPM project, you must configure the Oracle Fusion application to use the BPMN processes within the application. See Section 7.6, "Configuring Oracle Fusion Applications to Use BPMN Processes" for more information.
After deploying a BPM project to runtime, you must configure your Oracle Fusion applications to use the BPMN processes.
After deploying a BPM project, you must use CRM Application Composer to add an object workflow that conditionally responds to a record modification event for the business object. See Section 4.2, "Editing Objects" for more information on adding object workflows.
After deploying your BPM project to Oracle BPM runtime, you must register the BPMN processes using the Register Workforce Process page in the Oracle Fusion Workforce Lifecycle Manager (WLM). When you register a process, you must provide the name of the process as it appears in the Start menu of the Manage Workforce Process page. Depending on how your process is designed, you may also need to specify the parameters that are passed to the workforce process on startup.
For more information, see product-specific documentation in Oracle Fusion Applications Help.
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