Understanding PeopleSoft Business Process Weaver
PeopleSoft Business Process Weaver (BPW) provides a framework that allows processes (tasks), such as batch programs, to be defined and executed either in parallel or in sequence as part of a business process. You can create the User-Defined type of BPW business process (using the Business Process Definition page) that is executed within PeopleSoft BPW.
In addition, you can use Application Data Set (ADS) definitions to migrate the Business Process Definitions, Task Registry, Business Process Run Controls, and Business Process Weaver Application Class registry between databases—and ultimately to your production environments. For more information, see Using the Data Migration Workbench for PeopleSoft Business Process Weaver.
Prerequisites
Before using PeopleSoft Business Process Weaver, set up your system with the following:
Integration Broker: Used to pass the process notification to the process so that status can be updated and successor steps can be triggered. In order for this to work, Integration Broker must be set up and Gateway, domain, and nodes are configured and activated. You must add local-to-local routing for service operation PRCS_STATUS_OPER and make sure its queue PSRF_REPORTING_FOLDERS is running. For more information, see also configuration and integration setup in the product documentation, PeopleTools: Integration Broker Administration.
PeopleTools 8.54: Required specifically for push notifications (see Setting Up and Using Business Process Notifications) and ADS configuration (see Using the Data Migration Workbench for PeopleSoft Business Process Weaver), whereas the main functionality of Business Process Weaver notifications and ADS requires PeopleTools 8.53.
PeopleTools 8.58.07: Required specifically for using Oracle JET libraries to create BPW business processes.
The following table describes elements and terminology that are commonly used in PeopleSoft BPW:
Term |
Definition |
|---|---|
Business Process |
Business Process is the highest level component that defines the flow of a task’s execution. It is made up of Process Steps. Each process step executes one task. |
Process Steps |
Process Steps are the sub-components of Business Process. Business Process is a collection of Process Steps, with optional dependencies defined between them. |
Task |
A Task is a program or the business logic to be executed as part of the Business Process. A Task is defined in the Task Registry page. The most common tasks are Process Scheduler processes (Jobs). A Task is associated with a Process Step. One Step points to one Task, but the same Task can be associated with multiple Steps within a Business Process. |
Batch Programs |
In BPW, Batch Programs are processes (or Jobs) that are defined in Process Scheduler. |
Run Control |
Run Control, as is the case in all PeopleSoft documentation, identifies the parameters or input data to the processes. At the Step Thread level, it is the same as the Process Scheduler Run Control. The Run Control can be associated with the Business Process, Process Thread, Step, or Step Thread. |
Process Thread |
When setting up a Business Process Run Control, multiple Process Threads can be created with different run controls. Thus, different sets of input parameters and data can execute concurrent flows of the business process in parallel. |
Step Thread |
At the Process Step level, (for example, when running an Application Engine program), the input parameters and data can be partitioned to create multiple Step Threads to run multiple copies of the Application Engine programs (with different run controls) concurrently. The step is not considered finished until all its step threads are finished. |
Process Instance |
When a process (program) is executed, an instance is created to track the execution. Similar to Run Control, several levels of tracking are associated with business process, process thread, step, and step thread. This documentation refers to them as Business Process Instance, Thread Instance, Step Instance, and Step Thread Instance. Since step thread is the level at which processing is scheduled for the Process Scheduler, Step Thread Instance corresponds to the Process Instance in Process Scheduler. |
There are four groups of tables within Business Process Weaver.
This diagram illustrates the BPW core model tables (1 of 2):
This diagram illustrates the BPW core model tables (2 of 2):
