Connect to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Process Automation APIs

You use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Process Automation (also know as Process Automation and OCI Process Automation) APIs to develop, automate and monitor your business processes. In this topic, it's explained how you can create a Process Automation backend, if one hasn't been made available to you, and how you can create a service connection to a Process Automation process in a Process Application using the Process Automation catalog and the Create Service Connection wizard. For more about Process Automation, check here.

If you don't have an OCI Process Automation instance, an administrator needs to provide one, following the instructions in Provision and Manage Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Process Automation Instances.

You can connect to the Process Automation APIs using both Identity Propagation or Fixed Credentials:

Use Case	Prerequisites	Authentication method	Details
Connect to Process Automation REST APIs using Identity Propagation	The Process Automation instance is created in the same IDCS stripe or OCI IAM Identity domain as Visual Builder. Full scope of the Process Automation instance from its IDCS/OCI IAM is available.	OAuth 2.0 User Assertion	To use this option you need to provide the following details: Client ID and secret kept blank Token URL kept blank Scope from IDCS/OCI IAM, typically `https://<opa_instance>/process`
Connect to Process Automation REST APIs using Fixed Credentials	Client ID, secret, and the full scope of the Process Automation instance from its IDCS/OCI IAM is available.	OAuth 2.0 Resource Owner Password	To use this option you need to provide the following details: Client ID and secret as per IDCS/OCI IAM Token URL, typically `https://<idcs_or_iam>/oauth2/v1/token` Username and password of a valid user having access to the Process Automation REST APIs Scope from IDCS/OCI IAM, typically `https://<opa_instance>/process`

First, to create a service connection to a Process Automation API, you need a Process Automation backend representing a provisioned Process Automation instance. If you have a Process Automation backend, you can see it on the Backends tab of the Services pane (shows as Oracle Process Automation or Process Automation Artifacts):
Description of opa-backend.png follows
Description of the illustration opa-backend.png

If you need to create a Process Automation backend, it can be done at the tenant level, making it available to all applications, or at the application level, making it only available to the current application:

To create a Process Automation backend at the tenant level, you need to have someone with administrator privileges create a tenant-level backend, as explained in Visual Builder - Understanding Backends and Servers. This is recommended, as it'll be available to all of the applications. Also, refer to the table given above for details about using the Identity Propagation or Fixed Credentials authentication method.
To create a Process Automation backend at the application level:
1. On the Services pane, click the add (+) button on the pane's top-right and select the Backends option to create a new backend using the Create Backend wizard.
2. On the Select Backend step of the wizard, select the Oracle Process Automation tile and proceed to provide the backend's details.
  
  Description of the illustration opa-backend-catalog.png
  
  For more about how to create a backend, see Create a Backend, and refer to the table given above for details about using the Identity Propagation or Fixed Credentials authentication method.

Once the Process Automation backend is available, you can use the Process Automation catalog to create a service connection to a Process Automation process in a Process Application, using a wizard. To do so, see Create Service Connections from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Process Automation Catalog.