Using Controls in Business Processes

When you access a resource through a control, your interaction with the resource is greatly simplified; the underlying control implementation takes care of most of the details for you. You add an instance of a control to your business process project and then invoke its methods. All controls expose Java interfaces that can be invoked directly from your business process.

Designing the business process interactions with resources via controls includes:

Adding Control Nodes to Your Business Process

You add Control nodes to your business process to represent points in the business process at which you design interactions with resources via controls:

Control Send nodes represent points in business processes at which the business processes send messages to resources via controls.
Control Receive nodes represent points in business processes at which the business processes receive asynchronous messages from resources via controls. Business processes wait at these nodes until they receive a message from the specified control.
Control Send with Return nodes handle synchronous exchange of messages between business process and resources via controls.

Designing the Communications for Control Nodes

Node builders provide task-driven interfaces that allow you to specify the logic required at the nodes in your business process. Control nodes provide control-specific node builders. The tasks you must complete to design the interaction with your resource depend on which control you use and the methods it exposes.

Designing the communications between your business process and resources includes adding instances of controls to your business process project, then designing the interaction with the controls at the appropriate point in the business process. To learn how, see:

To help you specify the communication with a given control, customized interfaces are provided for controls. To learn about specific controls, see the following topics:

Integration controls:

Additional built-in controls:

Using Integration Controls in Web Services or Page Flows

You can use a subset of the integration controls in web services and page flows. If you are using Oracle WebLogic Integration, you can use the following integration controls in a web service (JWS) or page flow (JPF): OSB, Email, File, Process, Task, and Task Worker controls.