This document describes the BEA eLink Business Process Option product and gives instructions for using the tools for linking applications together using the eLink Business Process Option.

Who Should Read This Document

This document is intended for business analysts who are interested in linking applications together into a distributed environment.

How This Document Is Organized

The BEA eLink Business Process Option User's Guide is organized as follows:

• Chapter 1, "eLink Overview," provides an overview of eLink in its entirety.

• Chapter 2, "Business Process Design Overview," provides a quick study of the Business Process Option and the procedures for using it. More detailed instructions can be found in later chapters. This chapter includes a flow chart.

• Chapter 3, "Specifying Business Service Contracts," provides detailed instructions for using the Business Interface Window within the eLink Process Design Assistant to specify Business Service Interfaces.

• Chapter 4, "Designing Business Processes," provides detailed instructions for using the Business Interface and Business Process Windows to build process flows.

• Chapter 5, "Making eLink Processes Work," provides instructions for adding conditions to and modifying parameters in tasks to make their processes work.

• Appendix A, "Interface File (*.IFCE) Reference," provides information on the layout of files used to load interface specifications.

• Appendix B, "MATHAPP Tutorial & Reference," provides a tutorial for using the eLink Business Process Option with MATHAPP. It also provides a MATHAPP functional reference.

• Glossary

How to Use This Document

This document, the BEA eLink Business Process Option User's Guide, is designed primarily as an interlinked HTML document set. A virtual print document in Adobe Acrobat will also be provided.

Documentation Conventions

The following documentation conventions are used throughout this document.

Related Documentation

The following sections list the documentation provided with the eLink software, and other publications related to its technology.

eLink Business Process Option Documentation

The eLink Business Process Option information set consists of the following documents:

BEA eLink Business Process Option User's Guide

BEA eLink Business Process Option Release Notes

BEA eLink Business Process Option Operations & Maintenance Guide

BEA eLink Business Process Option Configuration Guide

BEA eLink Business Process Option Functional Specification

Note: The BEA eLink Business Process Option CD set also includes Adobe Acrobat PDF files of all of the online documents. You can use the Adobe Acrobat Reader to print all or a portion of each document.

BEA Publications

The following BEA publications which cover the eLink platform technology in depth are also available:

TUXEDO System 6 Administration Guide

TUXEDO System 6 Administration Guide to the Web-Based GUI

TUXEDO System 6 Reference Manual

Other Publications

For more information about the eLink Platform technology, refer to the following books:

3-Tier Client/Server at Work (Edwards)

The TUXEDO System (Andrade, Carges, Dywer, Felts)

The BEA eLink Business Process Option incorporates 3rd-party process engine technology. The relevant documentation is directly incorporated within the ELink Business Process Option documentation set. While this should provide all the information necessary, the eLink Business Process Engine CD also contains the 3rd-party documentation for reference. Please note that neither this documentation nor the usage it describes are directly supported by BEA Systems, Inc.

Contact Information

The following sections provide information about how to obtain support for the documentation and software.

Customer Support

If you have any questions about this version of the BEA eLink Business Process Option, or if you have problems installing and running the BEA eLink Business Process Option, contact BEA Customer Support through BEA WebSupport at www.beasys.com. You can also contact Customer Support by using the contact information provided on the Customer Support Card, which is included in the product package.

When contacting Customer Support, be prepared to provide the following information:

• Your name, e-mail address, phone number, and fax number

• Your company name and company address

• Your machine type and authorization codes

• The name and version of the product you are using

• A description of the problem and the content of pertinent error messages