10 Managing Your Organization in Process Workspace
Administrators of Oracle Business Process Management Suite can model an organization by defining organization units, business calendars, business holidays, roles, and other user properties.
10.1 Understanding Deployment of Organization Entities in Process Workspace
Understand how organization entities are deployed in Process Workspace.
When a process is deployed, the various organization entities—for example, the organization unit, calendar, and so on—are created. Those entities can then be modified only through Process Workspace. Later, when the process is redeployed, data in Oracle BPM Studio does not overwrite any changes made during runtime.
For information about organizational units, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing Business Processes with Oracle Business Process Management Studio.
10.2 Managing Holiday Rules in Process Workspace
Business holidays are collections of holidays that can be applied to calendar rules. Then, when computing the duration of a process, the calendar takes into account the specified holidays.
You can create as many holiday rules as needed for different calendar rules. For example, if you apply holiday rules for India, the United States, and China to a given calendar, then those various national holidays are taken into account when the duration of a process is computed.
When you create a business holiday rule, you specify the holiday name, date, and holiday type. Table 10-1 lists and describes the holiday types.
Table 10-1 Holiday Types
| Holiday Type | Description |
|---|---|
|
Same Day Every Year |
On the same day each year. |
|
Current Year |
In the current year only. |
|
Nth Week Day of Month |
In a specified week, on a specified day, in a specified month each year—for example, in the United States, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated each year on the fourth Thursday of November. |
|
Nth Day of Reference Holiday |
On a day in relation to another specified holiday—for example, on the day after Thanksgiving Day. |
|
Closest week day |
The closest day to a given date—for example, in the United States, the Independence Day holiday may be celebrated on the weekday closest to the Fourth of July. |
Note:
For Holiday Types, only yearly frequency type holidays are supported. Same Day Every Year and Nth Week Day Of Month are supported in Release 12.1.3.0. Other monthly and weekly frequencies like Nth Day of Reference Holiday and Closest week day are not supported.
10.2.1 To Create a Holiday Rule
Perform the following steps to create a holiday rule.
To create a holiday rule:
10.2.4 To Delete a Holiday Rule List
Perform the following steps:
- Access the Holidays List as in To Edit a Holiday Rule.
- Select the Holiday List to delete.
- Click Delete Holiday List.
10.2.5 To Delete a Holiday Rule
Perform the following steps:
- Access the Holidays List Details as in To Edit a Holiday Rule.
- Select the Holiday rule to delete.
- Click Delete Holiday.
10.3 Managing Calendars in Process Workspace
A business calendar defines a work pattern for each day and a work week structure for each week. In addition, a calendar also defines non-working days by using business holiday rules—that is, the business calendar and holiday rule together define the work period.
When you create a business calendar, you define the following:
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Calendar name
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Time zone
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Working days in week
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Start time and end time for each day
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Optional holiday rule
You can create as many calendars as necessary.
You can associate business calendars to roles (see How to Add New Application Roles and to organization units (see Managing Organization Units in Process Workspace). For example, you can specify that the InsuranceAgents role in the US-California organization unit follows the US-California business calendar.
Note:
After the project is deployed, you cannot make changes to the calendar rules.
10.3.3 To associate a calendar rule with a role and an organization unit
Perform the following steps:
10.4 Managing Other Users' or Groups' Rules in Process Workspace
Administrators can make changes to rules. This can be useful for correcting a problem with a rule. For example, for a user who no longer works for the company, you can set up a rule automatically assigning that user's tasks to another user or group.
To create a rule for another user or group:
- Search for the user or group for whom rules are to be created, as shown in Figure 10-3.
Figure 10-3 Creating Rules for Another User or Group
Description of "Figure 10-3 Creating Rules for Another User or Group" - Provide rule information, as shown in Figure 10-4, and click Save.
Figure 10-4 Defining Rules for Another User or Group
Description of "Figure 10-4 Defining Rules for Another User or Group"
10.5 Managing Roles in Process Workspace
Roles are created as application roles under the application OracleBPMProcessRolesApp.
There are two types:
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Swimlane roles: Each swimlane role in a BPM process is created during design time in Oracle BPM Studio. It is then mapped to an application role that is created during deployment. This mapping cannot be changed after deployment.
Members for these application roles can be defined and updated before deployment by using Oracle BPM Studio or after deployment by using Process Workspace.
Swimlanes define the default task assignee and how to initiate a process if the initiator task pattern is used. During runtime, only members of those roles can perform actions such as viewing and acting on tasks and initiating processes.
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Application roles: These represent any roles in the organization, and they can be created in addition to the swimlane roles defined during design time. An application role can be used as a task assignee or as a grantee of another application role. They can be created by using either Oracle BPM Studio or Process Workspace.
When you create a role, you define both the role name and the grantees of the role. The grantees can be users, groups, or other application roles. If users are logged in when you grant them a new role, they must log out and log back in to exercise the newly granted role.
10.5.1 How to Add New Application Roles
Perform these steps:
To add a new application role:
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From the Process Workspace toolbar, click Administration.
The Administration Areas panel appears.
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In the Organization panel, click Roles.
The Roles panel displays a list of the roles you are authorized to administer.
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In the upper-right corner of the Roles panel, click Add a new role.
The Add Role dialog box appears.
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Specify a name, optionally, a description for the new role. Click OK.
The new role is now listed in the Roles panel.
Note:
It is recommended that you do not include spaces in Role names.
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To grant this role to users, groups or application roles, follow the steps in How to Grant Roles .
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To associate a calendar and its corresponding organization unit with this new role, in the Calendar section:
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Select Associate a new calendar rule to an organization unit for the application role.
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From the Calendar list, select the calendar you want to associate with this new role.
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From the Organization Unit list, select the unit that you want to associate with the calendar you just specified.
Note:
When a calendar is associated with an organization unit for a role, this calendar overrides the calendar associated with the calendar page when the particular role is used.
-
10.5.2 How to Specify the Escalation Path for a Role
An administrator can specify the path an escalated task is to follow.
For more information about the escalation path, see Handling Escalations in Process Workspace.
To specify an escalation path:
10.5.3 How to Grant Roles
You can grant roles to, and revoke them from, users, groups, or application roles.
To grant a role to a user, group, or application role:
10.5.4 How to Revoke Roles
You can revoke roles from users, groups, or application roles
To revoke a role from a user, group, or application role:
Note:
If, during design time, you update a process by removing a member from a role and then re-deploy the process, the member you removed is still listed as a member of that role. This is because permission to remove members from roles is limited to administrators during runtime.
10.5.5 How to Create and Manage Role-Specific Views and Layouts
For information about creating a role-specific layout, see Creating and Editing Custom Pages in Process Workspace.
10.6 Managing Parametric Roles in Process Workspace
Parametric roles are logical roles created by the administrator. Members of parametric roles are dynamically evaluated at runtime by specifying them as a parameterized query.
Parametric roles can be based only on process roles that are created by process deployment or created by using the Administration panel in Process Workspace. More specifically, they can be based on any role defined in the application context OracleBPMProcessRolesApp that is already seeded and displayed in the Roles section of the Administration panel.
Parametric roles define either members of an organization unit or the assignees of a task.
10.6.1 Parametric Roles Used for Querying Members of an Organization Unit
These parametric roles are groups of users specified by using a query—for example, all grantees of role InsuranceAgent with expertise in HomeInsurance where expertise is an extended user property.
The query can contain one or more of the following parts:
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Group membership
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Role membership
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Extended user properties from which users select from a list of pre-defined values
For information about extended user properties, see Managing Extended User Properties in Process Workspace.
Note:
Deleting an extended user property already in use by an parametric role causes an error when administering that role.
10.6.2 Parametric Roles Used in Assigning Tasks
Parametric roles have one or more defined parameters that specify the type of person to whom a task can be assigned—for example, a task can be assigned as a parallel task to all users belonging to the Western region and whose skillsets include JAVA. The assignees that are returned by the dynamic parametric role can be used for any type of list builder—for example, sequential, parallel, or management chain.
The parameter values are defined at design time either as plain values or XPath expressions.
10.6.3 How to Create a Parametric Role
Perform these steps:
To create a parametric role:
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From the Process Workspace toolbar, click Administration.
The Administration Areas panel appears in the left pane.
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Select Parametric Role.
The Parametric Role panel appears in the right pane.
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In the Parametric Role panel, click Create Parametric Role.
This opens an editable Details panel.
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Enter a name for this parametric role.
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If you do not want this parametric role to be attached to a task assignee, then skip to Step 6.c.
If you want this parametric role to be attached to a task assignee, then you must define the parameters to specify the assignee.
To define parameters for a parametric role used in assigning a task:
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Expand Parameters and click Add Parameter.
An editable table enables you to specify the name and type of the parameter as in the example in Figure 10-5.
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Define the parameter by specifying the name and type.
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To add another parameter, click Add Parameter again and repeat.
Note:
You are not required to use any or all of the parameters that you define.
After a parameter is defined, the role is treated as a parametric role regardless of whether the defined parameters are used in a query.
-
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From the Grantees list, select either Group or Application Roles.
If you select Group specify the name of the group in either of the following ways:
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Enter the name of the group in the text field.
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Click Select Group to begin a search.
The Select Group dialog box appears. Specify your search, or use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, then click OK.
The group you specified is listed as the grantee of this parametric role.
If you select Application Role:
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From the Application Role list, select OracleBPMProcessRolesApp.
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Specify a parameter by entering a dollar sign ($), then selecting from the list that appears next to the field.
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Configure the conditions for the inclusion of the grantees.
To do this, from the Add Condition list, select a condition. The listed conditions include the standard LDAP attribute conditions of LDAP repository. There are 2 condition types listed:
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LDAP attribute condition: The LDAP attribute condition appears in title case in the condition list.
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Extended User Properties: The extended user properties condition appears in upper case in the condition list.
-
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Click Add Criteria Row and specify the values for each condition.
The values can be any of the following: (1) The application role or group to which the users must belong, (2) The extended user properties the users must match. You specified the extended user properties in Managing Extended User Properties in Process Workspace, and (3) Any parameters you may have defined for a parametric role used in assigning a task. When you begin entering a value, precede it with a dollar sign ($). The list of defined parameters appears next to the field as in the example in Figure 10-6.
Figure 10-6 Selecting Defined Parameters as Conditions of Users with Parametric Roles
Description of "Figure 10-6 Selecting Defined Parameters as Conditions of Users with Parametric Roles" -
After you have selected one or more conditions, the conditions you specified appear in the list of users you want to include.
You can then specify the filter for that condition.
-
-
Click Save.
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In addition to the standard LDAP attribute condition which is listed by default in the condition list, adding a condition based on custom LDAP attributes is supported.
For custom LDAP attributes condition additional configuration is to be done from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control. To add the custom LDAP attribute condition:
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Log in to the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control (
http://<server name>:<port number>/em/) -
Expand Farm_soainfra, SOA, soa-infra (AdminServer)
-
Navigate to SOA Infrastructure, Administration, System Mbean Browser as shown in Figure 10-7.
Figure 10-7 Customizing LDAP Attributes in Enterprise Manager
Description of "Figure 10-7 Customizing LDAP Attributes in Enterprise Manager" -
Expand Application Defined MBeans, oracle.as.soainfra.config, Server: Admin Server, WorkflowIdentityConfig, human-workflow, WorkflowIdentityConfig.ConfigurationType, jazn.com, WorkflowIdentityConfig.ConfigurationType.ProviderType as shown in Figure 10-8.
Figure 10-8 Viewing Attributes Tab for JpsProvider
Description of "Figure 10-8 Viewing Attributes Tab for JpsProvider" -
Click JpsProvider .
The Attributes tab appears on the right pane.
SearchableUserAttributeMap contains the custom attribute mapping a user can add.
-
Navigate to the Operations tab as shown in Figure 10-9.
Figure 10-9 Viewing Operations Tab for JpsProvider
Description of "Figure 10-9 Viewing Operations Tab for JpsProvider" -
Click the addSearchableUserAttributeMap operation to populate the needed values as shown in Figure 10-10:
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The first parameter is the user attribute.
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The second parameter is the provider specific attribute mapped to in LDAP.
Figure 10-10 Parameters for addSearchableUserAttributeMap
Description of "Figure 10-10 Parameters for addSearchableUserAttributeMap" -
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Click Invoke to save the changes.
The values are displayed in the Attributes tab.
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10.7 Managing Extended User Properties in Process Workspace
Extended user properties are used in defining parametric roles.
Extended user properties are described in Managing Parametric Roles in Process Workspace.
Typically, users have some properties specified in Oracle Internet Directory or some other LDAP directory. Often, however, additional properties specific to their organization and roles are necessary. At times, these properties are added on demand when newer business processes are created. At that time, it might not be possible to extend the company's global LDAP directory. In these cases, extended user properties are useful. For example, you can specify that a given user with the sales representative role is located in California. Although, from a functional point of view, there is only one role, the individual user is associated with a property, and that property has a value assigned for that user.
Figure 10-11 shows an example of the Extended User Properties page.
Figure 10-11 Sample Extended User Properties Page
Description of "Figure 10-11 Sample Extended User Properties Page"
Extended user properties can be assigned to users, groups, or roles.
When you create extended user properties, you define the following:
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Property name.
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Property type, which can be of the following data types: string, number, date and free form text. String data types are enumerated values. Free form strings can have any value.
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Enumeration in case of a string data type.
Note that only string-typed properties can be assigned values at the time of definition and only those values can be assigned to users when the property is associated with a user.
After properties are defined, they can be associated with any user. During association, values must be assigned to the property for that user
Only users who have Administrator privileges can define new properties.
10.7.3 To Delete Extended User Properties
Perform these steps:
To delete extended user properties:
Note:
Deleting an extended user property already in use by an parametric role causes an error when administering that role.
10.8 Managing Organization Units in Process Workspace
An organization unit represents departments or divisions within an organization. Organization units can contain child organization units creating a hierarchy that corresponds to your organization.
When you create an organization unit, you define the following:
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General parameters - such as the organization unit name, comments and calendar
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Members - members of the organization unit, which can include users, groups, application roles, or parametric roles. These can be specifically added using the Identity Browser, or added based on user attributes.
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Business Constants - links to pre-defined business parameters.
When a process is associated with an organization unit, only members of that organization unit and its children can see that process and the tasks initiated by it.
Note:
A manager is not a member of an organization unit by default. The manager must be added to the organization unit in order to see the processes and the tasks within it.
If a process is associated with an organization unit, then the tasks initiated by the process can use the business calendar associated with the organization unit. See Managing Calendars in Process Workspace for more information.
10.8.1 To Create an Organization Unit
Perform these steps:
To create an organization unit:
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From the Process Workspace toolbar, select Administration.
The Administration Areas panel appears.
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Under Organization, click Organization Units.
The Organization Units panel appears.
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From the Add Organization Unit list, select either Root Organization Unit or Child Organization Unit.
The Create Organization Unit dialog box prompts you for the name of the organization unit.
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Enter the name of the organization unit, and click OK.
The new organization unit appears in the Organization Units list as shown in Figure 10-12.
The controls shown in the Members section change depending on whether the Add member control is set to Manually or Based on user attributes.
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In the right pane, in the Details section for the new organization unit:
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In the General section, optionally provide a description of the newly created organization unit in Description.
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From the Calendar list, select a calendar rule to associate with this organization unit.
For information about adding a calendar rule, see Managing Calendars in Process Workspace.
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If adding members manually, select Manually for the Add member value. The Members section changes to display the Members and Managers controls.
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In the Members section, add members.
The Select Member dialog box prompts you to search for a user or group to add to this organization unit.
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Enter the name of the user or group you want to add, then click Search.
From the Available column, select one or more members you want to add, and use the arrow button to move them to the Selected column. Click OK. The members you added appear in the Members window.
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In the Add Parametric Role, click Add new member.
The Select Member dialog prompts you to select a parametric role. Click OK. The parametric roles you added appear in the Parametric Role window.
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Similarly, in the Managers window, click Add new manager.
The Select Manager dialog box prompts you to search for a user or group to add to this organization unit.
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Enter the name of the manager you want to add, then click Search.
From the Available column, select one or more managers you want to add, and use the arrow button to move them to the Selected column. Click OK. The managers you added appear in the Managers window.
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If adding members using a logical search, select Based on user attributes for the Add member value. The Members section changes to display the Name and Equals controls.
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Specify a user attribute from the Name drop-down.
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Specify a search term in the Equals text entry box. Members with the selected user attribute matching the search term is added to the organization unit.
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In the Business Constants area, add any business parameters you want associated with the organization unit to act as business constants. Click Add Business Constants and select the desired items from the Select Business Parameters dialog box.
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Click Save.
