| Oracle® Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0) Part Number E15177-04 |
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| Oracle® Fusion Middleware Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0) Part Number E15177-04 |
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View PDF |
This chapter describes how to create and use projects using Oracle Business Process Composer.
This chapter includes the following sections:
Projects are the core element of an Oracle BPM application. BPM projects contain the resources used to create and support a business application. These include business processes and components of the business catalog including data objects, services, Business Rules, Human Tasks, and roles.
You can create new projects directly in Business Process Composer or you can create and edit projects based on project templates.
Oracle BPM projects promote collaboration between process analysts and process developers. Projects can be shared between Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio using the BPM MDS repository. See Section 4.1.2, "Introduction to the Oracle BPM Repository and the Repository Browser" for more information.
Projects can also be validated and deployed to run time using Oracle Business Process Composer. See Section 4.6, "Deploying an Oracle BPM Project to Run Time" for more information.
See Section 3.2, "Overview of the Application Development Life Cycle" for information on how projects are created, edited and shared within the development life cycle.
Each project contains one or more business processes and may include other resources used by the business processes or application. The latter include reusable resources that allow you to connect your application to other applications and systems.
Note:
Oracle BPM Studio enables you to view, create, and edit all elements of an Oracle BPM project. Some of these are not visible from Business Process Composer.See the Oracle BPM Modeling and Implementation Guide for more information.
Using Business Process Composer you can create and edit project resources. These resources are accessible from the Project Navigator as show in Figure 4-1.
Using the Oracle BPM Project navigator, you can create and edit the following resources:
Processes
Processes are the core element of a business application. A process is a related set of tasks or activities. An Oracle BPM application can contain one or more processes. Business Process Composer enables you to create and edit BPMN processes.
From the BPM Project navigator you can create new processes and edit existing ones. See Chapter 5, "Working with Processes and the Process Editor" for information on creating and working with processes.
Activity Guide
An activity guide is part of Guided Business Processes that enables you to define milestones for a project. Each project contains one activity guide where you can define project milestones. Business Process Composer enables you to use milestones previously defined in a project template or create new milestones.
See Section 6.12, "Using Guided Business Processes to Set Project Milestones" for more information on creating and using project milestones.
Oracle Business Rules
Oracle Business Rules are statements that describe business policies or describe key business decisions. In Business Process Composer, Oracle Business Rules are editable components of a project, but they also appear as part of the business catalog.
See Chapter 9, "Using Oracle Business Rules" for information.
Human Tasks
Oracle Business Process Composer enables you to create and edit human tasks. Human tasks are used to define how users interact with your process-based applications.
From the BPM Project navigator you can create new human tasks and edit existing ones. See Chapter 8, "Working with Human Tasks" for more information. After creating a human task, they are accessible within the business catalog.
Project templates may include resources defined in the business catalog. These are reusable services created by process developers using Oracle BPM Studio.
Using Business Process Composer, process analysts can implement these reusable services within a BPM process. Although you cannot create or edit these components in Business Process Composer, you can assign them to specific BPMN artifacts.
Reusable project resources are accessible from the component palette. The reusable resources in the business catalog are:
Services
Services are used to connect a BPMN process with other processes, systems, and services, including BPEL processes, databases.
Using Business Process Composer you can create new services based on web services. See Section 5.4.3, "How to Create New Services in the Business Catalog" for more information.
You can also use other types of services that were created as part of the project template.
Within a BPMN process, services are implemented by assigning the service to a service task. See Section 6.4.1, "Introduction to the Service Task" for more information.
External references
References are the interfaces that you can use to define the interface of your BPMN processes. references are used for implementing message events and send and receive tasks with an interface.
See Section 6.4, "Communicating With Other Processes and Services" 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 Section 6.3, "Adding User Interaction to Your Process" for information on using human tasks within a BPMN process.
Oracle Business Rules
Oracle business rules are statements that describe business policies or describe key business decisions. Business rules are integrated into a process using the business rules task.
See Chapter 9, "Using Oracle Business Rules" for information on working with Oracle Business Rules using Business Process Composer. See Section 6.5.2, "Introduction to the Business Rules Task" for more information on using the business rules task within a BPMN process.
Table 4-1 lists the components of the business catalog and shows which components can be created or edited using Oracle Business Process Composer.
The Oracle BPM repository is based on Oracle Metadata Service (MDS). Oracle MDS is a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware that stores information about deployed applications. Oracle BPM uses this repository when applications are deployed to Oracle BPM run time.
The Oracle BPM repository browser enables you to navigate the directories and projects published to the Oracle BPM Metadata Service partition. Figure 4-2 shows the repository browser displaying several project folders and published projects.
Figure 4-2 The Oracle BPM Metadata Service (MDS) Browser
Additionally, Oracle BPM also uses a partition in the Oracle MDS Repository to share projects and project templates between Oracle BPM Studio and Business Process Composer. Within the Oracle BPM repository, there are two partitions used to store projects and project templates. These are:
Public: used to store Oracle BPM projects.
Templates: used to store Oracle BPM project templates.
The Oracle BPM repository is installed and configured by your system administrator when installing Business Process Composer.
See Section 3.2, "Overview of the Application Development Life Cycle" for more information on how the Oracle BPM repository is used to share projects and project templates between Oracle BPM Studio and Business Process Composer.
See Section 4.4, "Creating and Working with Projects" for more information on how to open projects in the Oracle BPM repository. See Section 4.3, "Introduction to Project Templates" for information on creating and working with projects based on project templates.
Business Process Composer enables you to view projects in the Oracle BPM repository. When you need to edit a project, you can lock it so that other users cannot edit the project while you are making changes.
There are three edit modes for an Oracle BPM project:
Default: The project can be opened for viewing.
Edit: The project is being edited by the current user. The project appears locked to other users.
Locked: The project is being edited by another user. You cannot edit the project until the other user publishes the project to the repository.
If a project is not locked by another users, you can
The project navigator enables you to create and access projects and view and edit project resources.
Figure 4-3 shows the project navigator with the resource tree expanded.
The project navigator is divided into three main areas as described in Table 4-2.
Table 4-2 Project Navigator
| Area | Description |
|---|---|
|
Project List |
Provides a drop-down list of available projects. This list is based on the security roles assigned to you. |
|
Processes |
Displays the processes within the current project. |
|
Activity Guide |
Displays the milestones defined in the activity guide for this project. |
|
Business Rules |
Displays the business rules defined for this project. |
Business Process Composer contains a Project menu provides access to tools and commands for working with projects. The menu items available depend on the current edit mode of the project.
Default mode refers to the state of the project when it is not being edited. Figure 4-4 shows the appearance of the project toolbar in default mode.
Figure 4-4 The Project Toolbar in Default Mode
Table 4-3 Project Toolbar Items in Normal Mode
| Toolbar Item | Description |
|---|---|
|
Shared / Private |
Displays whether the project is shared or private. This option is unavailable until you select the edit option. |
|
Read-Only |
Contains a drop-down menu item that enables you to change your project to Edit mode. When you select Edit, the project is locked in the Oracle MDS repository and you can begin making changes. The project lock is maintained until one of the following occur:
|
|
Refresh |
Refreshes the Oracle BPM repository. It is important to refresh periodically to ensure that you are viewing the current contents of the repository. |
When a project is being edited, the project toolbar displays additional options for publishing, saving, and validating a project. Figure 4-5 shows the appearance of the project toolbar in edit mode.
Figure 4-5 The Project Toolbar in Edit Mode.
Table 4-4 describes each of these toolbar items.
Table 4-4 Project Toolbar Items in Edit Mode
| Toolbar Item | Description |
|---|---|
|
Validate |
Validates the project. Any errors are displayed in the error browser. |
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Save |
Saves all of the edited project resources. The project remains locked so that you can continue making changes. |
|
Shared / Private |
Displays a drop-down menu that enables you to toggle between shared or private editing modes. |
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Editing |
Displays a drop-down menu containing the following options:
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Repository |
Refreshes the Oracle BPM repository. It is important to refresh periodically to ensure that you are viewing the current contents of the repository. |
Project templates enable business users to quickly create custom Oracle BPM applications and deploy them to runtime without assistance from developers. Using Oracle Business Process Composer business users can create new BPM projects based on project templates. These projects contain BPMN process flows and can be deployed directly to run time.
Project templates enable you to incorporate reusable components and services including Human Tasks, Business Rules, and Adapters. These services are stored as part of the business catalog.
Business Process Composer users who have administrative privileges can also import project templates directly from their local file system. See Section 10.4, "Managing Project Templates" for more information.
Using Oracle BPM Studio process developers can convert a normal project to a template and publish it to the Oracle BPM repository. After a template is available in the repository, you can create new projects based on the template using Business Process Composer.
See the Oracle BPM Modeling and Implementation Guide for more information on creating process templates.
Project templates are based on normal Oracle BPM projects and generally have all the required implementation and services defined in the business catalog. However, they often do not have all of the required services assigned to the necessary flow objects. After creating a new project based on a project template, a business analyst can assign business catalog components to the necessary flow objects.
The specific services required for each activity are defined by the editor policies of the project template. After the process analyst incorporates the required services, the project can be deployed to Oracle BPM run time.
Project templates also allow you to define edit policies for processes and flow objects within a process. Edit policies determine what parts of a process can be changed or edited when creating a new project based on a project template. Edit policies are defined for the entire process. However, you can also define edit policies for individual flow objects.
See the Oracle BPM Modeling and Implementation Guide for information on defining edit policies in a process template.
Edit policies allow the creator of a project template to define what elements of a process can and cannot be changed when a project is created from a template.
Note:
You cannot change the edit policy settings of processes and elements using Business Process Composer.Within a project template, each process contains an edit policy which determines the changes you can make to the process using Business Process Composer.
Table 4-5 describes the process level edit policies.
Within a process, there are also edit policies that apply to the flow objects within a process. Component level edit policies can be configured for the flow objects within a process.
Table 4-6 describes the edit policies values that can be configured for component level edit policies.
Table 4-6 Component Level Edit Policies
| Edit Policy | Description |
|---|---|
|
Sealed |
The flow object cannot be modified |
|
Can modify implementation |
The user may redefine this flow object if necessary. |
|
Must implement |
The user is required to assign a component from the business catalog to this flow object for it to function correctly. |
|
Use process permission |
Uses the default edit policy defined by the process. |
A project template can define the data objects used within a project. These can be the Oracle BPM default types or complex data objects created by process template developers within Oracle BPM Studio.
When editing a process template in Business Process Composer, you can add and create new data objects as necessary. However, you can only create new data objects based on types that are previously defined in the project template. You cannot create new types of complex data objects.
You can use any of the data objects defined in a project template in data associations and expressions. See Section 7, "Working with Data Objects and Expressions" for more information.
The following sections provides information how to create and use Oracle BPM projects.
Using the project navigator, you can create a new Oracle BPM project. Before creating a new project, you should decide whether to create it based on an existing project template or to create a process blueprint.
Process blueprints are not based on project templates. These projects contain only basic business processes created by process analysts. After you create a project blueprint, you can use Oracle BPM Studio to finish the project implementation to publish the project or create project templates.
To create a new project:
Start Oracle Business Process Composer.
From the Project menu select Create New Project.
Select the type of project you want to create. This can be a project based on a project template or a process blueprint.
See Section 4.3, "Introduction to Project Templates" for more information.
If you are creating a project based on a project template, select the appropriate template.
Click Next.
Enter a name for your new project.
If desired, select from the following options:
Enable Sharing: Enables other users to view your project in Oracle BPM MDS. If you do not enable sharing, you can still publish your project manually to BPM MDS.
Begin Editing Now: Locks the project after creation allowing you to begin editing the project. Other users cannot view your changes or edit the project until you publish it to BPM MDS.
Click Next.
Select the destination directory in the Oracle BPM Metadata Services partition where you want to create the project, then click Next.
Specify the deployment options for this project.
Use Workflow for Approval: Requires workflow approval before a project can be deployed.
Specify Users or Groups: Determines the users or groups who must approve project deployment.
Note:
You can only specify workflow approval when creating a new project. You cannot change this setting after the project is created.See Section 4.5.2, "Introduction to Approval Routing" for more information on approval workflow.
Click Finish.
If you created a new project based on a template, the project is created with the required processes and business catalog elements. If you created new project without using a template, you must manually add the required processes.
See Chapter 5, "Working with Processes and the Process Editor" for information on creating and editing processes.
Using Business Process Composer you can create new projects based on project templates.
To create a project from a project template:
Launch Oracle Business Process Composer.
From the Welcome Page select Create New Project.
Select Create a Project Based on a Template, then select the project template you wish to use.
Enter a name for your project, then click Next.
Optionally, choose the folder where you want to store the new project.
From the drop-down list, choose the type of approval routing you want to configure for the project.
Note:
After creating a new project, you cannot change the type of approval routing.Click Create.
Business Process Composer enables you to open projects that are stored within the Oracle BPM Metadata Service repository.
To open a project using the project browser:
From the Project menu select Open Project.
Select the type of project you want to open using the project navigator as shown in Figure 4-6.
Figure 4-6 Oracle Business Process Composer Project Browser
Projects: Projects that are stored in the Oracle BPM Metadata Service repository.
Deployed Projects: Projects that have been deployed to Oracle BPM run time.
Opening a deployed project enables users to edit Oracle Business Rules at run time. This option is only available if you have been granted the SOADesigner security role. See Section 9.4, "Editing Oracle Business Rules at Run Time" for more information.
Select the project you want to open, then click OK.
After the project opens, select the Read Only drop-down menu from the project toolbar, then select Edit to begin editing.
If you have permissions to edit a project and the project is not locked by another user, you can edit the project. To begin editing, you must change the edit mode of the project. See Section 4.2, "Introduction to Project Editing and the Project Menu" for more information on edit modes.
To edit a project:
Open the project you want to edit.
From the Read-Only menu, select edit.
Once you have enable edit mode for a project, you can begin making changes to it. See Chapter 5, "Working with Processes and the Process Editor" for more information.
You can manually save a private copy of your changes as you are editing a project.
To save changes to the current project:
Ensure you are in edit mode.
Click Save in the process editor toolbar.
All unsaved changes for each project component are saved. The project continues to be locked and you can continue editing.
Validating a project enables you to check your project and processes for any errors. Business Process Composer displays these errors in an error browser. Business Process Composer has an error browser for the project and one for each process.
Figure 4-7 shows the types of errors displayed within the project error browser.
To validate a project:
Open your project.
Ensure that you have enabled editing for the project.
Click Validate in the project toolbar.
After validating your project, any errors found are displayed in the error browsers for the project or process.
Note:
You cannot deploy projects that contain errors. You must correct any errors before the project can be deployed.Business Process Composer enables you to publish projects to the Oracle BPM Metadata Service (MDS). Publishing a project enables you to share it with other Oracle BPM users.
To publish a project
Ensure you are in edit mode.
Select Publish from the Repository.
After publishing a project, your changes are saved in the Oracle BPM MDS repository and the project lock is reset. If project sharing is enabled, other Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio users can view and edit the project.
You can configure Business Process Composer to automatically save a project after a specific interval.
To configure autosave:
Click Preferences in the Business Process Composer toolbar.
Select the Autosave check box to enable autosave functionality
Enter a value in the Interval field.
This value, in minutes, determines how often the project is saved.
Click OK.
Note:
Autosave is configured for the entire project. All edited project elements are saved at the same time when autosave is configured.While editing project elements, you can revert your changes and return to the most recent published version of a project.
To discard changes made to the current project:
Select Discard from the Edit menu.
Click OK to confirm discarding changes to the current project.
Note:
After discarding your changes they cannot be recovered.The project properties dialog enables you to view the type of approval workflow, if any, is configured for this project. See Section 4.5.2, "Introduction to Approval Routing" for more information.
Additionally, you can configure how sampling points are generated for the project as as whole. Sampling points allow you to generate information about the performance of an flow object within in a running process. The data generated according to this configuration is stored in the Process Analytics Database.
See Appendix A, "Common Properties" for information on setting sampling point generation for individual flow objects. See Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Management User's Guide for general information about sampling points.
To configure and view project properties:
Open your project.
Ensure that you have enabled editing for the project.
Select Project Properties from the Project menu.
Select how you want to generate sampling points for the project.
Generate for all activities: causes sampling point data to be generated for all flow objects within your process.
Generate for interactives only: causes sampling point data to be generated only for user tasks.
Do not generate: does not generate sampling point data.
Click OK.
Projects exported from Business Process Composer can be imported into Oracle BPM Studio. Exporting a project is useful when you have created a project containing process blueprints that must be sent to a process developer for implementation.
Exporting a project to your local file system enables you to share projects without using the Oracle BPM MDS repository.
For information on importing a project into Oracle BPM Studio see the Oracle BPM Modeling and Implementation Guide.
To export a project
Open the project you want to export
From the Tools menu, select Export Project.
Choose a location on your local file system and click Save.
Your exported project is saved as a .EXP file on your local file system.
You can use Business Process Composer to deploy a project to the Oracle BPM run time. Deployment is available only within the same environment where the Business Process Composer application is installed.
The deployment option is only available for projects that were created based on project templates. These projects have the required implementation. After a process analysts makes the changes required by the edit policies defined in the project template and validates the project, it is ready for deployment.
Business Process Composer uses the Deployer security role to allow process analysts and developers to deploy projects directly to Oracle BPM run time. When a user is assigned the Deployer security role, the Deploy Project option is available from the Tools menu.
You can assign this security role to users or groups using the Business Process Composer administration tool. See Section 10.1, "Introduction to Security Roles in Oracle Business Process Composer" for more information.
Approval routing defines the approval process that must be followed before an Oracle BPM project can be published to run time using Business Process Composer. You can define the required approval routing when you create a new project using Business Process Composer.
Note:
Approval routing is defined when you create a new project. After creating a project, you cannot change the type of approval routing.You can view the approval routing defined for a project in the project properties. See Section 4.4.10, "How to View and Configure Project Properties" for more information.
Table 4-7 describes the different types of approval routing available in Oracle BPM.
Table 4-7 Approval Routing
|
None |
No approval routing is specified. Any user granted the deployer security role can deploy the project directly to Oracle BPM run time. |
|
Simple |
Specifies only one approver for the workflow. |
|
Simple Sequential |
Specifies a sequential list of approvers. All users must take action in order to approve deployment of the project. |
|
Simple FYI |
Sends notification that a project is being deployed, but approval workflow does not wait for approvers to process the task. |
|
Parallel |
Specifies a list of approvers who must approve the project deployment concurrently and in parallel. |
Business Process Composer enables you to deploy a project to Oracle BPM run time. There are two ways of deploying a project described in the following sections.
Users who are assigned the deployer role can deploy projects directly to Oracle BPM run time. The deployer role does not require approval from other BPM users. The following procedures define how to deploy a project when approval workflow is not enabled.
To deploy a project to run time:
From the Tools menu select Deploy Project.
Business Process Composer validates the project. If there are no errors in the project, the deployment process continues.
Provide the required information in the Deploy Project dialog shown in Figure 4-8.
The properties in the Deploy Project dialog are described in the following table.
Table 4-8 The Deploy Project Dialog Properties
|
Last Revision ID |
Displays the revision ID of the most recent deployed version of the project. |
|
New Revision ID |
Specifies a revision ID for the deployed application. This ID can must be of the form: n0[.n1[.n2[.n3[.n4]]]][-milestone-name[milestone-number]/_patch-number |
|
Deployer Username |
Used for deploying the Oracle BPM project to run time. The username specified here is defined by the SOA infrastructure. It is not related to the username used to access the Business Process Composer application. See Section 4.5.1, "Introduction to the Deployer Security Role" for more information. |
|
Password |
Specifies the password corresponding to the Deployer Username defined above. |
|
Add MDS Connection for oramds Protocol |
Select to enable a connection to a database using the oramds protocol. This is sometimes required when connecting to the database used for the Oracle BPM repository. If this is required, your system administrator must provide the connectivity information for the database. |
|
Hostname |
Specifies the database hostname or IP address. |
|
Port |
Specifies the database port. |
|
SID |
Specifies the SID of the database. |
|
Username |
Specifies the database username used to connect to the Oracle MDS database. |
|
Password |
Specifies the password for the database user. |
|
Deploy target |
Enables you to select the folder in Oracle MDS where the SOA composite application is deployed. |
Click Deploy.
The project is deployed to Oracle BPM run time. The project is available from the list of deployed projects in the project browser.
When you create a new project, Business Process Composer enables you to specify an approval workflow. This workflow defines the users who must approve a project before the project is deployed to Oracle BPM run time.
Note:
This deployment option is only available if approval workflow was enabled when the project was created. See Section 4.4.1, "How to Create a New Project" or Section 4.4.2, "How to Create a New Project From a Project Template" for more information.To deploy a project using approval workflow:
From the Tools menu select Deploy Project.
Business Process Composer validates the project. If there are no errors in the project, the project appear in the Approval Workflow browser.
Based on the type approval workflow defined for the project, required approvers must approve the deployment using Oracle BPM WorkSpace. See the Oracle Fusion Middleware Business Process Management User's Guide for more information.
You can monitor the approval status and progress using the Approval Workflow browser.
After the deployment has been approved open the Approval Workflow browser, then click Deploy.
You can use Business Process Composer to open deployed Oracle BPM projects. Opening a deployed project enables you to edit the Oracle Business Rules contained in the project and deploy your changes back to Oracle BPM run time.
See Section 9.4, "Editing Oracle Business Rules at Run Time" for more information on editing Oracle Business Rules at run time.
To open a deployed project:
Launch Business Process Composer.
From the Project menu, select Open a Deployed Project.
Select a project from the Project navigator.
Click Refresh to ensure you see the latest contents of the Oracle BPM repository.
Click OK.
You can export a project as a SAR file from Business Process Composer. Your system administrator can use this file to deploy a project using the Oracle Enterprise Manager administration console.
To export a project as a SAR file:
From the Tools menu select Export as SAR file.
Enter a revision ID, then click OK.
Business Process Composer validates the project. If the project contains errors, these are displayed in the project validation tab.
See Section 4.6.4, "How to Export a Project as a SAR File" for more information on validating your project and correcting validation errors.
If the project contains no errors, click OK to save the SAR file to your local file system.
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