1. Developing Business Processes with Oracle Business Process Management Studio
  2. Using Oracle Business Process Management Studio
  3. Working with Business Process Management Projects

2 Working with Business Process Management Projects

BPM projects contain one or more business process and may include other resources used by the business processes or overall application.

2.1 Introduction to BPM Projects

A BPM project is a container for the resources used to create and support business applications created using Oracle BPM.

You create new projects in Business Process Composer and edit them in Oracle BPM Studio to develop the process implementation.

Projects can be shared between Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio or deployed to BPM runtime. See Overview of the Application Development Life Cycle for information on how projects are used within the development life-cycle.

2.1.1 Introduction to Project Resources

Each BPM project contains one or more business process and may include other resources used by the business processes or overall application. This can include other reusable resources that allow you to connect your application to other applications and systems.

The following are the key resources of an Oracle BPM project:

  • BPMN Processes: includes BPM processes.

  • Business Components: includes reusable components including services, adapters, business objects (data definitions), business events, enumerations and business exceptions.

  • Business Rules: includes the business rules used in the BPM project.

  • Human Tasks: includes the human tasks used to implement the interactive activities of the BPMN process in the BPM project.

  • Simulations: includes the simulations models defined for a project and individual BPMN processes.

  • Activity Guide: provides a milestone view of the BPMN process. This node appears after you create an activity guide. Note that you cannot use activity guides and adaptive case management at the same time.

  • Organization: includes the organization elements used to mimic the organizational structure of your organization within BPMN process models.

  • Resources: contain the XML transformations defined for your project.

It contains related business processes and process related assets such as human task definition, services, rule definitions, data definitions (Business Object), Business Exceptions, Business Events and more. These reusable, shared assets are contained in a Business Catalog inside the BPM Project. In addition to Business Catalog, the BPM Project contains simulations, organization model and XSLT mapping etc

Each of these resources are accessible from the Projects section in the Applications window. Additional application resources are accessible from other sections in the Applications window.

2.1.2 Sharing Projects Between Oracle BPM Users

Oracle BPM uses the process asset manager (PAM) repository to share projects and project templates between other Oracle BPM Studio and Business Process Composer users.

The process asset manager the design-time repository for Oracle Business Process Management Suite. By default it connects to an embedded source control system, you can configure it to use and external source control system and it connects with an identity manager for authentication and authorizations. The process asset manager provides a unified source for the development of processes across Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio.

See Overview of the Application Development Life Cycle for more information on how projects and project templates are shared between BPM Studio and Business Process Composer.

See Sharing BPM Projects Using the Process Asset Manager for more information on the process asset manager.

2.2 Creating and Working with Projects

As you work with projects, you create new projects, open existing ones, import and export projects, and edit the preferences.

See Sharing BPM Projects Using the Process Asset Manager for more information on working with projects using the process asset manager.

2.2.1 How to Create a New Project

Oracle BPM projects are created in the same way as other types of SOA composite application components.

To create a new Oracle BPM project:

  1. Choose File > From Gallery from the menu.
  2. Under Categories, select BPM Tier, then select BPM Project and click OK.
  3. Enter a name for your project.

    Note:

    Use only ASCII chars A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and "_" for project names, and the name must begin with A-Z,a-z.
  4. Ensure that BPM and SOA appear in the Selected column, then click Next.
  5. Enter a name for the SOA composite.

    By default a BPM project is created and configured using the Composite With BPMN Process template.

  6. Click Finish.

The new project is created and appears in the Applications window. After the project and composite file are created, the Create BPMN Process wizard starts automatically. You can choose to create a new process or cancel the wizard.

See How to Create a New Business Process for more information on creating a new BPMN process.

2.2.2 How to Open a Project from the File System

You can open an Oracle BPM project directly from the file system. This is generally used to open local projects that you have previously closed.

Projects that are shared with other users are imported from an exported Oracle BPM project or using Oracle BPM MDS.

To open a project:

  1. Choose File > Open from the menu.
  2. Browse to the location of your project folder.
  3. Select the Java Project (.jpr) file for your project.
  4. Click Open.

The project appears in the Applications window.

Note:

When you open a project from the file system, the project remains in its original location. It is not copied to the Oracle JDeveloper working directory.

2.2.3 How to Export a Project

Exported projects enable you to share projects with other Oracle BPM Studio users. This is useful when it is not feasible to share projects by publishing them to Oracle BPM MDS.

To export a project:

  1. Choose File > Export from the menu.
  2. Select Export BPM Project, then click OK.
  3. Provide a name for your project, then browse to the location where you want to export the project.
  4. Click Next.
  5. Click Next, then click Finish.

2.2.4 How to Import a Previously Exported Project

After you export an Oracle BPM project from Oracle BPM Studio or Oracle Business Business Process Composer, you can import it back to Oracle BPM Studio. This enables you to share projects directly from a file system instead of using Oracle BPM MDS.

To import a project:

  1. Choose File > Import from the menu.
  2. Select Import BPM Project, then click OK.
  3. Browse to the location of the .exp file of the exported project and click Open.
  4. Select a project root folder, then click Next.
  5. Provide a project name, then click Next.
  6. Click Next, then click Finish.

2.2.5 How to Edit Project Preferences

You can edit project preferences to configure the behavior of an Oracle BPM project, including the following:

  • Configure sampling points and process analytics.

  • Configure general process properties, layout properties, severity level for process-related messages to highlight, and the default mode to use in data associations.

  • Add localization languages to a project.

To edit project preferences:

  1. In the Application window, right-click the project whose preferences you want to edit, then select BPM.

  2. Select Project Preferences.

  3. Edit the project preferences as necessary, then click OK.

For more information on specific project preferences, see the online Help for Project Preferences.