| Oracle® Fusion Middleware Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0) Part Number E15176-05 |
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| Oracle® Fusion Middleware Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0) Part Number E15176-05 |
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|
View PDF |
This chapter describes how to use Guided Business Processes to organize the activities in your process into milestones. You can use milestones to make your process easier to run for inexperienced users. Guided Business Processes hide the complexity of the process and guide the end-user through the tasks that are relevant to them.
Section 24.3, "Standards and Guidelines for Working with Guided Business Processes"
Section 24.4, "The Typical Flow of Developing a Guided Business Process"
Section 24.5, "Introduction to Developing a Guided Business Process"
Section 24.8, "Deploying an Guided Business Process to Oracle Weblogic Server"
Guided Business Process enable you to group the interactive activities in your BPM process into a set of milestones that are meaningful to the process participants. They outline the steps the process participants have to complete, hiding the complexity of the business process.
Guided Business Processes provide a guided visual representation of a process flow, improving the user experience by providing end users with an encapsulated hierarchical view of the business process.
Guided Business Processes enable directing end users to complete a business process through a guided set of steps associated with the process. By following the steps outlined in a Guided Business Process, end users require less training to complete a business process, and the results of the process are more predictable.
A Guided Business Process is modeled as an activity guide that is based on a business process. The Activity Guide includes a set of Milestones. A milestone is a contained set of tasks that the end user has to complete. A milestone is complete when the user successfully runs a specific set of tasks in the milestone.
Each milestone is a specific 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. Depending on the nature of the task flows, a participant may save an unfinished task flow and resume it at a later time.
Leveraging Service-Oriented Architecture
Service-Oriented Architecture is the foundation for Guided Business Processes. Guided Business Processes use SOA composite processes, leveraging the following SOA functionality:
Reuse of existing investments: Oracle SOA Suite provides a foundation for and access to re-usable services. Composite processes leverage existing investments by running on the SOA platform and accessing existing services provided by the platform. By enabling the use of existing systems, Oracle SOA Infrastructure increases the usefulness and value of these systems.
Process-oriented software: Service-Oriented Architecture combined with process orchestration infrastructure act as the controlling agent for the business process across multiple disparate systems.
When to Use Guided Business Processes
Guided Business Processes enable running large-scale, long-running, multiuser processes that consume and reuse taskflows built by other teams. For example, the finance and human resources departments of an organization may access the same human taskflows in different business processes. Using Guided Business Processes enables re-using existing taskflows in a large composite, creating a more meaningful business process for end users.
Oracle SOA infrastructure provides access to re-usable services that you can use in your business processes. Guided Business Processes leverage existing services, processes and task flows to create long-running, multiuser processes.
Guided Business Processes provide the following functions and features:
Re-using tasks and taskflows within a large composite, to avoid redesigning and re-coding tasks and activities.
Using SOA infrastructure to orchestrate tasks, creating a flow of business processes.
Using Milestones to modularize tasks into manageable chunks, while presenting to end users a set of related, guided tasks.
For example, a long process with one hundred tasks can be broken down into ten or twenty Milestones. End users need only step through a few Milestones rather than, say, one hundred individual tasks.
Guided Business Processes: Design Time and Run Time
Guided Business Processes consist of both design time components and run time interfaces.
Guided Business Processes use Oracle Business Process Management to provide a comprehensive, standards-based, easy-to-use solution for creating, deploying, and managing composite application business processes with both automated and human workflow steps—all in a service-oriented architecture.
Guided Business Processes leverage features of Oracle Fusion Middleware, such as security, scalability and high availability. The following features enable composite processes to be exposed as Guided Business Processes:
Technology abstraction. By using metadata, the actual implementation of business logic need not rely on any one technology.
Declarative development. Using metadata to define business logic and business processes eliminates the need for coding when creating a Guided Business Process.
Developing Guided Business Processes involves creating a composite application which contains a SOA project with a BPM Project. The BPM process exposed as a Guided Business Process, consists of an Activity Guide that contains milestone activities. A separate client application must also be developed as an end user interface for the Guided Business Process.
You can develop a user interface for Guided Business Processes using any of the following:
Oracle ADF
Oracle WebCenter Framework
Guided Business Process Run-Time Services.
A Guided Business Process is a BPMN process that orchestrates a set of human tasks and provides a common user interface to complete and track these tasks. To define a Guided Business Process you create an Activity Guide that comprises the following components:
Milestone: A milestone is a group of human tasks which must be completed to accomplish a particular goal. A milestone is complete when its human tasks have been completed. Similarly, an Activity Guide is complete when a specific set of Milestones are completed. A milestone can contain Human Task activities and other BPMN activities.
Human Tasks: It is possible to invoke an ADF task flow from an Activity Guide. To do so, a Human Task component is placed in the Activity Guide and bound to an ADF task flow.
Other Tasks: Activity Guides can include other tasks such as service calls. However, these automated tasks do not appear in the Activity Guide tree at run time.
Activity Guides with a simple, sequential process execution must complete all Milestones. Similarly, all Human Task components within a milestone must be completed to complete the milestone.
Activity Guides containing branching and conditional logic may sometimes complete execution without necessarily completing all Milestones. Similarly, some Human Task components within these Milestones may be skipped as well.
Guided Business Processes rely on Oracle Business Process Management to orchestrate tasks, combining Oracle Business Process Management, worklist applications, and human task flows to link disparate human tasks to a greater long-running process.
At run time, Guided Business Processes manifest as BPMN process instances orchestrating ADF task flows within Milestones. The run-time engine for BPMN guided business processes is the BPMN Service Engine. The BPMN engine delegates all human task operations to Human Workflow services.
You can view the process instances organized into an Activity Guide using a custom application developed with Oracle ADF UI, Oracle WebCenter UI or Guided Business Process access APIs. The process instances that you view in an Guided Business Process client also appear in the Worklist application, but they are not organized into milestones.
As shown in Figure 24-4, the Guided Business Process run-time architecture is composed of the client, business logic and data tiers.
Run time support includes the Guided Business Process Query, Guided Business Process Metadata and Guided Business Process Instance Management services. The run time components interface with Oracle Business Process Management and the Human Workflow Service.
You can use any of the following as a basis for a Guided Business Process client application:
Oracle Worklist application
Oracle ADF
Oracle WebCenter Framework
Guided Business Process Run-Time Services.
The Guided Business Process run time front end, or client application, enables end users to follow the task flow defined at design time in the Activity Guide. Using the client application, end users can:
Expand a milestone and drill down to the tasks it includes
Complete the tasks defined in the Milestones
View the status and percent completion of the business process as the Guided Business Process runs.
You can manage and access a Guided Business Process using the following:
Customized Client Application: You can create customized client applications to display the Guided Business Process to end users using Oracle ADF UI, Oracle WebCenter UI or Guided Business Process APIs.
Worklist Application: An out-of-the-box interface for displaying the tasks in a Guided Business Process, to users completing the guided tasks.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Server Control console: A platform for administering and monitoring Guided Business Process instances. The console is also useful for testing Guided Business Processes following development.
Features of the Run-Time User Interface
Following are some features of the run-time user interface:
Auto Focus: Once a Guided Business Process is deployed, you can generate a new Guided Business Process instance with milestone nodes and task nodes. When you access the Guided Business Process instance from the user interface, auto focus selects the first uncompleted task in the process. On completion of a task, auto focus selects the next uncompleted task in the process. Auto focus also supports optional tasks, when you skip an optional task it selects the next uncompleted task in the process.
Future Milestones and Tasks: When accessing a Guided Business Process, the Milestones display in the Activity Guide tree. The Activity Guide also displays the milestones and tasks to be completed in the future. This provides users with a holistic view of the tasks and milestones to be completed. If the Guided Business Process is to be executed sequentially, future tasks and milestones are grayed out. Future tasks and milestones may be viewed, but not executed.
Branching: Branching involves placing a switch in the business process flow which enables splitting the process into two or more branches.
Conditions are set to determine which branch executes. If the flow branching is determined by a condition, then the milestone branching node displays as an ellipsis ("...") in the Activity Guide tree. The milestones to be completed for the selected branch display only when the switch executes at real time.
Parallel Milestones: Parallel milestones are milestones that can be completed at any time, in any order without following a specific sequence, if previous milestones have completed.
Disabling Completed Tasks: When the end user completes a task, the link to the task is grayed out to avoid distracting the user with links that are no longer active.
Progress Indicator: The progress indicator provides feedback to the end user about their progress completing the entire Guided Business Process. The progress is shown using a bar graphic with the completion percentage of the Guided Business Process.
Completed Tasks: Shows the completed number of tasks out of a total number of tasks.
Filtering: Enables to filter the tasks within a milestone based on their functional state. The possible functional states to use when filtering tasks are: All, In Progress, Completed, Required, Optional.
Explicit Refresh: Activity Guides automatically refresh task flows when you complete a task using Activity Guides. If you complete the task from another application such as Oracle BPM WorkSpace or a custom UI client, you must explicitly refresh the Activity Guide. Explicit refresh is not available by default. To enable explicit refresh you must enable the ShowRefreshButton property.
For more information on how to configure the ShowRefreshButton property, see Section 24.7, "Configuring Activity Guide Properties".
The business logic tier includes the following components:
Guided Business Process Metadata Service
The SOA composite associated with an Guided Business Process drives it at run time. As such, no run-time environment data is stored in the Guided Business Process metadata. The Guided Business Process Metadata Service locates and retrieves the Guided Business Process definition at run time from the Metadata Service (MDS).
Guided Business Process Query Service
The Guided Business Process query service retrieves the Guided Business Process instance information based on specified search criteria. The query service uses the existing workflow service to query Guided Business Process data. The Guided Business Process query service is registered to the workflow service locator as an additional workflow service.
Guided Business Process Instance Management
Guided Business Process run-time states are maintained as separate objects, enabling Guided Business Processes to have a state separate from the SOA composites with which they are associated. The related SOA composite instances are managed by an SOA composite run-time manager.
Guided Business Process Instance Schema
A schema defines the structure of Guided Business Process instances. The schema represents Guided Business Process data persisted to the database at run time.
Human Workflow Service
Workflow services enable you to interleave human interactions with connectivity to systems and services within an end-to-end process flow. In BPMN workflow services are linked to the BPMN process using a user task. The process assigns a task to a user or role and waits for a response. The users act on the task using Oracle BPM Worklist.The Human Workflow Service is responsible for handling all interactions with users or groups participating in the business process. It does this by creating and tracking tasks for the appropriate users in the organization. Users typically access tasks through a variety of clients, including Oracle Worklist application, Oracle BPM WorkSpace, e-mail, portals, or custom applications.
For more information about the Human Workflow Service, see the chapter "Introduction to Human Workflow" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.
Oracle Business Process Management persists Guided Business Processes, BPMN process and task instances to the database at run time. Oracle Metadata Repository (MDS) stores the schemas of available services, including BPMN processes, task and Guided Business Process metadata. The schemas are used when instantiating a Guided Business Process.
The following use cases show you different situations where to use Guided Business Processes:
Many public sector organizations process forms manually, a labor intensive and environmentally wasteful procedure.
For example, a state agency must provide, collect and process various forms to issue fishing and hunting licenses. The state agency hires additional outside contractors for the summer and fall season to handle the increase of license applications more efficiently while avoiding information loss or negligence.
Rather than manually processing the license applications, the end-to-end form processing procedure can be modeled as a Guided Business Process with two Milestones.
The following outline of an example form processing using Guided Business Process is generic, and can be adapted to enable end-to-end processing of similar forms:
Milestone 1: Filling in and Submitting an Application
Applicants on the state Web site for the Department of Fishing and Hunting can click the Apply button to fill in and submit an application for a fishing or hunting license.
The milestone includes the following tasks:
Personal details: Applicants must fill in personal details such as name, address, and so on.
License selection: Applicants select a fishing or hunting license.
Form submission: Applicants click the Submit button to send the forms to the state fishing and hunting department. The workflow selects an application approver and e-mails the approver a request for review and follow-up.
Milestone 2: Application Processing and Result Notification
Applications for hunting licenses require review and manual approval or rejection.
The milestone includes the following tasks:
Approval/Rejection of application: The license application approver navigates the approval/rejection flow.
Status notification: The workflow sends the applicant a notification regarding the status of the license application.
With its intuitive guided user experience, the Guided Business Process maximizes the efficiency of the license application process while increasing the productivity of license approvers. In addition, the Guided Business Process enables monitoring the end-to-end application process at both the front- and back-end levels.
In the loan-origination industry, banks must consider several business factors: process consolidation, regulatory compliance and faster product delivery, for example. Loan products change frequently, often depending on state or region where the loan is offered.
The following example focuses on a subset of loan origination. As such, only specific processes are illustrated.
Business Process Flow
In this example, the business process flow for an online loan application procedure is as follows:
Application or registration: The customer enters qualification information for a loan product.
Processing or locking of a loan: The customer agrees to a specific product and rate. This stage of the procedure spawns several sub-processes that gather additional information on the customer. This information enables the underwriters to decide on the loan.
Underwriting the loan: An underwriter uses the information gathered to approve or reject the loan.
Closing: The organization selling the loan closes the loan application and grant process.
These processes rely on several interrelated services and procedures, as illustrated in Figure 24-5.
Origination: The process of acquiring customer data and related data, making decisions based on processing the data and requesting data from third-party services.
Third-party services: These are used to retrieve data on the customer and the item to be purchased with the loan.
Secondary processes: These are processes that execute while the main process runs. This example focuses on pricing for various mortgage products.
Servicing: Following origination, loans are either booked on the bank or sold on the secondary market, for example at other banks or by other loan vendors.
Although these processes appear simple, completing them involves many business challenges.
Increasingly, the interactions between real human actors in software must be coordinated. Humans are key participants in almost every software system, especially in collaborative processes and composite applications. Some common challenges are presented when involving humans interaction with structured workflow systems.
Deciding whether to grant a loan might entail working through a large set of rules based on the customer's credit history, income and other factors. These factors must be coordinated with several business process determined by the bank. Underwriters are alerted to approve or reject an applicant, depending on several factors, including the applicant's personal details and external data requests from third-party services.
A mortgage application Guided Business Process might include several milestones. The following Guided Business Process outline illustrates a mortgage application procedure.
Milestone 1: Loan Application
A potential customer registers on the loan provider Web site and applies for the loan through a series of guided tasks.
Registration: The applicant registers on the bank's Web site.
Product selection: The applicant selects a loan based on the type of product required and the products available regionally.
Application: The applicant enters the personal details required to apply for a loan.
Milestone 2: Application Processing
Once the loan application process has completed, the loan is processed and reviewed for approval.
Information retrieval: Various services are used to access information regarding the loan and the applicant's finances and personal details.
Review: An underwriter must manually review the loan application.
Approval: Based on the data reviewed, the approver must approve or reject the loan.
Milestone 3: Closing
Once the loan has been approved it is ready for closing.
The milestone includes the following tasks:
Closing appointment: The title company or closing attorney sets an appointment with the customer.
Closing documents: The loan closer gives the loan documents to the closing agent and provides to the customer any required documents, and as the final closing
The following standards and guidelines apply to Guided Business Processes:
Guided Business Processes must be deployed to a standalone Oracle WebLogic Server.
The following describes the main workflow of developing a Guided Business Process:
Develop the Guided Business Process:
Develop a BPMN process and configure it as a Guided Business Process.
Configure Milestones and associated tasks.
Develop a task flow.
Deploy, instantiate, and test the Guided Business Process.
Develop a Guided Business Process front end for use at run time. To develop a front end, you can:
Develop a client application with Oracle ADF UI or Oracle WebCenter UI.
Use Oracle Worklist application as a client application.
Develop a custom UI with Guided Business Process run-time services.
Deploy the Guided Business Process client application.
Monitor Guided Business Process instances using the Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Server Control console.
Guided Business Processes allow you to organize your processes into milestones. These milestones are meaningful to the end-user and hide the complexity of the process by showing them only relevant information to their tasks.
You can create a Guided Business Process and organize the tasks in your process into a set of milestones. Using milestones enables you to run your process and track its completion in a more efficient way.
The following list describes some features you can use:
Branching: Branching involves placing a switch in the business process flow which enables splitting the process into two or more branches.
Conditions are set to determine which branch executes. If the flow branching is determined by a condition, the milestone branching node displays as an ellipsis ("...") in the Activity Guide tree. The milestones to be completed for the selected branch display only when the switch executes at real time.
Optional/Required Tasks: By default, sequential tasks are required, unless configured otherwise. Tasks that are required for the completion of the Guided Business Process display with an asterisk (*). Required tasks cannot be skipped. Optional tasks are not required for the completion of the Guided Business Process. The user has the option to run optional tasks but they can choose to skip them. An example use for an optional task might be a survey that end users can optionally fill out after completing required tasks in an Guided Business Process.
Configuring tasks as required or optional enables task filtering by required or optional task type at run time.
Parallel flow: Parallel flows enable Guided Business Processes to perform multiple tasks at the same time, which is useful when you must perform several time-consuming and independent tasks.
If previous milestones have completed, then end users can complete parallel milestones in any order.
Future Milestones and Tasks: When accessing a Guided Business Process, the Milestones display in the Activity Guide tree. The Activity Guide also displays the milestones and tasks to be completed in the future. This provides users with a holistic view of the tasks and milestones to be completed. If the Activity Guide is to be executed sequentially, future tasks and milestones are grayed out. Future tasks and milestones may be viewed, but not executed.
Internationalization: Guided Business Processes support internationalization using resource bundles. Resource bundles separate text, labels, messages and other locale-sensitive objects from the core source code, maintaining a single code base for all localized versions of Activity Guides. To enable internationalization for an Activity Guide, see Section 24.6.33, "How to Localize a BPMN Guided Business Process".
To develop a BPMN Guided Business Process you must first create a BPMN process. Then you can develop the Guided Business Process based on the BPMN process.
You can only define one Guided Business Process per project. The Guided Business Process is based on a BPMN process in the project. This process is the root process.
You can develop a Guided Business Process based on a BPMN process.
To develop a BPMN Guided Business Process:
Create a BPMN process or use an existing BPMN process.
In the BPM Project Navigator, expand the project that contains your BPMN process.
Right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Configure.
In the Title text-field, enter a title to identify the Guided Business Process.
From the Root Process list, select the BPMN process you want to transform into a Guided Business Process.
Click OK.
You can add the user tasks in the BPMN process to the milestones in the Guided Business Process. When you finish building the Guided Business Process, you can access the BPMN process using a Guided Business Process client.
You can add a new milestone to an existing Guided Business Process.
To add a new milestone to a Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select New Milestone.
The New Milestone dialog appears.
Enter a title for the milestone.
Optionally, enter the number of tasks the user has to complete to consider this milestone completed in the Tasks Remaining field.
At run time, the activity guide tree uses this value to show the percentage of completed tasks over the total tasks, in the progress indicator.
Click OK.
The Guided Business Process displays a new milestone. You can add the user tasks in the root process to the new milestone.
You can add a user task to a milestone in the Guided Business Process.
To add a user task to a milestone:
Open the root process.
Right-click the user task.
Select Add to Milestone.
The Add User Task to Milestone dialog appears.
From the Milestone list, select the milestone to which you want to add the user task.
If you did not create the milestone, you can create it using the Add button next to the Milestone list.
If the user task is the last task in the milestone, select the Last Task in Milestone check box.
Click OK.
You can run the user task from a Guided Business Process client. The user task appears under the milestone in the activity guide tree.
Ensure that your Guided Business Process contains at least two milestones. If it contains only one milestone, the Move to Milestone option is grayed out.
To move a user task to another milestone:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, right-click the user task.
Select Move To Milestone.
The Move to Milestone dialog appears.
From the Milestones list, select the milestone where you want to move the user task.
Click OK.
The previous milestone does not list the user task anymore. The user task appears in the new milestone.
Ensure that your Guided Business Process contains at least two milestones. If it contains only one milestone, the Move to Milestone option is grayed out.
To order the milestones in a BPMN Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
Move each milestone to the right position:
Right-click the milestone.
Select Move-Up or Move-Down according to where you want to move the milestone.
The milestones appear in the order you arranged them in the activity guide tree.
You can delete a task from a Guided Business Process.
To delete a task from a Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
If the milestone that contains the task you want to remove is collapsed, then you must expand it.
Right-click the task you want to remove.
Select Delete.
A confirmation message appears.
Click OK.
You cannot access that task from the Guided Business Process. The milestone that contained it does not list that task anymore.
You can delete a milestone that you do not use or need from the Guided Business Process.
To delete a milestone:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
Right-click the milestone you want to remove.
Select Delete.
A confirmation message appears.
Click OK.
The milestone does not appear in the Guided Business Process. All the user tasks in the milestone are deleted from the Guided Business Process. You cannot access these tasks from the Guided Business Process anymore.
You can configure a task as optional so that it is not required to complete the Guided Business Process.
To configure an optional task:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
Expand the milestone that contains the task.
Right-click the task.
Select Edit.
The Edit User Task dialog appears.
Select Show Task as Optional.
Click OK.
By default all task are required unless you configure them to be optional.You must configure a skip button for the tasks you configure as optional.
When a group of users is assigned to a certain task, anybody in the group can claim that task. If after claiming the task the user decides not to complete it, then he can skip the task. When a user skips a task, the tasks is assigned back to the group so that the other users in the group can claim it and complete it.
To configure a parallel task flow you must use gateways in the BPMN process. See Chapter 6, "Modeling Business Processes with Oracle BPM" for more information on how to use gateways.
To branch the task flow you must use gateways and conditional sequence flows in the BPMN process. See Chapter 6, "Modeling Business Processes with Oracle BPM" for more information on how to use gateways and conditional sequence flows.
You can configure a task to display a blocked icon and message when it is not available for the end user to run it.
To configure a task to display a blocked icon and message:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
Expand the milestone that contains the task.
Select Edit.
The Edit User Task dialog appears.
Select the Display Blocked Icon and Text check box.
If you want the Guided Business Process to display a message explaining it is blocked, enter the message in the field.
Click OK.
When the current task is completed and the next task is not instantiated, the activity guide tree displays a blocked icon. If you defined an explanation message, it appears as a tooltip when you locate the cursor over the blocked icon.
You can configure a custom icon for the Activity Guide tree to display next to the Activity Guide node.
To configure an icon for a Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Configure.
Click the Browse button, next to the Icon Location field.
The Browse Icons dialog appears.
Select an icon from your file system.
Click Open.
The icon path appears in the Edit Activity Guide dialog.
Click OK.
The activity guide tree uses this icon to identify the activity guide node. If you do not specify an icon, then the activity guide node does not display an icon.
You can configure a custom icon for the Activity Guide tree to display next to each milestone.
To configure an icon for a milestone:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
Right-click the milestone.
Select Edit.
Click the Browse button, next to the Icon Location field.
The Browse Icons dialog appears.
Select an icon from your file system.
Click Open.
The icon path appears in the Edit Milestone dialog.
Click OK.
The activity guide tree uses this icon to identify the milestone nodes. If you do not specify an icon, then the milestone nodes do not display an icon.
You can configure the display mode for a Guided Business Process to specify how to display the milestone and task links.
To configure the display mode for a Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Edit.
From the Display Mode list, select an option from the following:
| Display Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Always | Always display the milestone and task links for all the milestones in this Guided Business Process. |
| When Instantiated | Display the milestone and task links only when one or more of the user tasks in the milestone are instantiated, for all the milestones in the Guided Business Process. |
Click OK.
The milestones and tasks within the Guided Business Process use this configuration to display the milestone and tasks links. If the milestone and tasks are configured to used another configuration then the Guided Business Process configuration is ignored.
You can configure the display mode for a milestone, to specify how to display the milestone and tasks links.
In the BPM Project Navigator, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Edit.
From the Display Mode list, select an option from the following:
| Display Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Default | Use the Guided Business Process configuration. |
| Always | Always display the milestone link. |
| When Instantiated | Display the milestone link only when one or more of the user tasks in the milestone are instantiated.
Use this mode for milestones located after a conditional gateway so that the activity guide tree does not display the milestone until the BPM Service Engine evaluates the condition. |
Click OK.
The milestone links are displayed according to this configuration, regardless of the Guided Business Process configuration.
You can configure the display mode for a user task to specify how to display the task link.
To configure the display mode for a user task:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the milestone that contains the user task.
Right-click the user task.
Select Edit.
From the Display Mode list, select an option from the following:
| Display Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Default | Use the milestone configuration. |
| Always | Always display the task link when the milestone that contains it is visible. If the user task is not instantiated, then the link is grayed out. |
| When Instantiated | Display tasks only when the user task is instantiated.
Use this mode for user tasks located after a conditional gateway so that the activity guide tree does not display the user task until the BPM Service Engine evaluates the condition. |
Click OK.
The task links are displayed according to this configuration, regardless of the Guided Business Process configuration and the milestone configuration. The tasks links appear when the milestone is visible.
You can configure the task access mode for a Guided Business Process to specify when to display the task links enabled.
To configure the task access mode for a Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Edit.
In the Task Access list select an option from the following:
| Task Access Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Active Only | The link to the task is enabled only when the task is active and the user can update it. When you complete the task the link to the task is grayed out. |
| Any State | The link to the task is always enabled after you instantiate the task, even after you complete the task. |
Click OK.
After the task is completed, the Guided Business Process uses this configuration to display the links. If the task mode is active only, the tasks links are grayed out. If the task mode is any state, the tasks links remain enabled and a message appears when you try to run the task.
You can localize a BPMN Guided Business Process so that the client can display it in different locales.
To localize a BPMN Guided Business Process:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Edit.
From the Title list, select Translation.
Click the Translation icon, next to the title field.
The Edit Translatable Strings dialog appears.
Click Create Resource Bundle.
The Create Resource Bundle dialog appears.
Enter a name to identify the resource bundle.
Click OK.
The Edit Translatable Strings dialog shows the resource bundle you created.
Click the Add icon next to the key list to add a new translation key.
The Create a New Key dialog appears.
In the Name field, enter a name to identify the translation key.
In the Translatable Text field, enter the title.
Click OK.
From the Description list, select Translation.
Click the Translation icon, next to the description field.
The Edit Translatable Strings dialog appears.
Click the Add icon next to the key list to add a new translation key.
The Create a New Key dialog appears.
In the Name field, enter a name to identify the translation key.
In the Translatable Text field, enter the description.
Click OK.
In the Edit Activity Guide dialog, click OK.
Localize the milestones that compose the Guided Business Process.
You can localize a milestone so that the client can display it in different locales.
To localize a milestone:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, right-click the Activity Guide node.
Select Edit.
From the Title list, select Translation.
Click the Translation icon, next to the title field.
The Edit Translatable Strings dialog appears.
Click the Add icon next to the key list to add a new translation key.
The Create a New Key dialog appears.
In the Name field, enter a name to identify the translation key.
In the Translatable Text field, enter the title.
Click OK.
From the Description list, select Translation.
Click the Translation icon, next to the description field.
The Edit Translatable Strings dialog appears.
Click the Add icon next to the key list to add a new translation key.
The Create a New Key dialog appears.
In the Name field, enter a name to identify the translation key.
In the Translatable Text field, enter the description.
Click OK.
In the Edit Activity Guide dialog, click OK.
If the milestone contains user tasks configured to display blocked icon and text, localize the user tasks that compose the milestone.
In a user task you can localize the following elements:
Title
Description
Blocked Text
This procedure shows you how to localize the blocked text. You can also localize the title and description of the user task following the standard procedure for localizing flow objects.
To localize a user task:
In the BPM Project Navigator, select the Activity Guide node.
In the Structure window, expand the Activity Guide node.
If the milestone that contains the task you want to remove is collapsed, then expand the milestone.
Right-click the task.
Select Edit.
From the Display Block Icon and Text list, select translation.
Click the Translation icon, next to the title field.
The Edit Translatable Strings dialog appears.
Click the Add icon next to the key list to add a new translation key.
The Create a New Key dialog appears.
In the Name field, enter a name to identify the translation key.
In the Translatable Text field, enter the title.
Click OK.
You can customize Activity Guides behavior by configuring their properties. To configure these properties you must edit the file activityguide.properties.
Table 24-1 shows the properties you can specify in this file.
Example 24-1 shows a typical activityguide.properties file:
Table 24-1 Activity Guide Properties
| Property | Description | Possible Values |
|---|---|---|
|
ServerAuthenticationMethod |
Specifies the authentication mode used to connect to services deployed in the SOA Engine. |
IDENTITY_PROPAGATION |
|
ServerConnectionMode |
Specifies the mode for the transmission of data. |
|
|
WorklistHttpURL |
Only required when using digital signatures. Specifies the URL to access the worklist application. |
http://host:port/integration/worklisapp |
|
SelectionFilter |
Specifies the filter used to filter the processes in an activity guide. |
|
|
AGDefinitionFilter |
Specifies the definition ID used to filter the process in an activity guide. The activity guide only displays those processes that match this ID. |
activity guide definition ID |
|
AGInstanceOrdering |
Specifies the order used to display the processes in the activity guide. For example: CREATION_DATE:ASC |
Default value: ASC |
|
AGInstanceID |
Specifies the instance ID used to display the activity guide tree. For example: 10001 |
activity guide instance ID |
|
CustomPredicate1 |
Specifies an additional predicate to filter the list of processes in an activity guide. For example: CREATOR, EQ, jstein |
column name, operator, value |
|
CustomPredicate2 |
Specifies a different additional predicate to filter the list of processes in an activity guide. This predicate is used with CustomPredicate1 |
column name, operator, value |
|
ShowAllAGTreeNodesProperties |
Specifies if the activity guide shows a section at the top that describes the properties of activity guides, milestones and tasks. |
Default value: true |
|
ShowRefreshButton |
Specifies if the regional area displays a refresh button. |
Default value: false |
|
AGTasksPopupTaskFlowID |
Specifies the content to display in the task pop-up. |
fully qualified TaskFlow ID |
|
HideAGTreeRootNode |
Hides the Guided Business Process title on the Activity Guide Tree root node. |
Default value: false |
|
realm |
Security abstraction that controls access to the resources served by the Java Web Server. |
jazn.com |
|
ShowCustomBlockedIcon |
Specifies if the Guided Business Process shows the custom task blocked icon. |
Default value: false |
Example 24-1 An activityguide.properties File
#ActivityGuide Properties ServerAuthenticationMethod=IDENTITY_PROPAGATION ServerConnectionMode=SOAP SelectionFilter=MY Realm=jazn.comShow RefreshButton=true #ShowAllAGTreeNodesProperties=true ## Sample value for AGDefinitionFilter: default/BPMAGPrj2!2.0*31fcd931-6263-4b58-97cf-6fb084addabc #AGDefinitionFilter= #AGInstanceID=110003 #AGInstanceOrdering=CIKEY:DESC #CustomPredicate1=STATE,EQ,OPEN #CustomPredicate2=STATUS,EQ,In Progress ## Example Value for AGTasksPopupTaskflowID is /WEB-INF/ag-popup-task-flow.xml#ag-popup-task-flow #AGTasksPopupTaskflowID= #ShowCustomBlockedIcon=true #HideAGTreeRootNode=false ##WorklistHttpURL is required only for digital signatures #WorklistHttpURL=http://host:port/integration/worklistapp
Guided Business Process are deployed to the application server in the same way as an SOA composite process. However, Guided Business Processes must be deployed to a standalone instance of Oracle WebLogic Server rather than the embedded Oracle WebLogic Server included with JDeveloper.
Deploying a Guided Business Process to Oracle WebLogic Server involves the following main steps:
Creating a connection to Oracle WebLogic Server
Using JDeveloper or an Ant script to deploy the Guided Business Process
To deploy an Guided Business Process:
Following are the main steps in deploying an Guided Business Process:
Create a connection to Oracle WebLogic Server.
Use connection type Weblogic 10.3.
Enter a name for the WLS Domain.
Deploy the Guided Business Process through JDeveloper or using an Ant script:
To deploy a Guided Business Process using JDeveloper:
Right-click the SOA composite associated with the Guided Business Process and select Deploy, then select the name of the SOA composite and the name of the server connection configured in the previous step.
To deploy a Guided Business Process using an Ant script:
Right-click the SOA composite and select Deploy, the name of the SOA composite and to JAR.
Run the command shown in Example 24-2:
For more information about deploying an SOA composite to the application server, see "Deploying SOA Applications with Enterprise Manager" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.
The Guided Business Process runs on WLS. You can view the Guided Business Process using Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Server Control console.
For more information about deploying SOA applications to WLS, see " Deploying SOA Applications with Enterprise Manager" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite.
You can create an instance of the deployed Guided Business Process in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Server Control console. This is useful for testing purposes.
To create a Guided Business Process instance:
In a Web browser, enter the URL of the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Console as follows:
Browse for the application and click the SOA composite you created.
Select Actions > Test service - client.
Test the Guided Business Process by entering sample data and invoking the composite.
Refresh Fusion Middleware Control Console and verify that the SOA composite instance has been created. Check that the business process completed.
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