Work with Business Processes
You can use business processes in your application to automate assigning tasks to users and creating task lists.
After you associate a custom business object with business processes in a Process application, you can add UI components to your pages that start processes and can be used to complete user tasks.
Add a Business Process to an Application
When adding a business process to an application, you can use business process aliases that are registered on the process server. By using an alias, the code that you add to the page refers to the alias instead of a specific version of the process, and you can update the process version without changing the code by updating the alias in the Process Alias editor. You need to configure the process server before you can add a business process.
To add a business process alias:
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Open Processes in the Artifact Browser and click
to open the Register Deployed Process dialog box.
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Select the process you want to add.
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Type the alias you want to use for the process. Click Add.
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Repeat steps 2 and 3 to add aliases for more business processes. Click Close when you are finished adding aliases.
The aliases for each of the business processes that you added to your application are listed in the Processes browser. You can select an alias to open it in the editor.
A business process alias points to a revision of a process in a specific process application registered on a test instance or a production instance. You can use the process editor to modify the target of your process alias to point to a different process and to automatically point to a default or more recent revision instead of a specific revision.
When you are developing your application you will want your alias to point to a process on a test instance. When you are ready to stage or publish your application you will need to modify the alias to point to a process on a production instance.
To modify a business process alias:
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Open the alias in the Process Alias editor.
The Process Alias editor contains read-only fields that identify the name of the alias, the process application and the process name that the alias points to. The editor also contains a Code Snippets section with the code that you will copy into pages in your application.
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Click the ellipsis ( ... ) next to the Registered Deployed Process field to select a new process in the Registered Deployed Process dialog box.
The read-only text field displays the process that the alias points to. Click the ellipsis button to select a different target. When the alias points to a process on a test instance, you will see the following warning: A test instance has been selected. When the application is staged or published, another deployed process will need to be selected.
Go to Your Oracle Process Cloud Service
If you have a configured connection to a process server, you can use the Processes menu to go directly to your Oracle Process Cloud Service instance.
Click the menu and select Design Processes to go to the Applications tab of Oracle Process Cloud Service, where you can create, edit, publish, and test processes.
Click the menu and select Manage Processes to go to the My Tasks tab of Oracle Process Cloud Service, where you can complete assigned tasks.
About Starting and Completing Processes from Oracle Visual Builder
To be able to start a process from Oracle Visual Builder, you must configure it in Oracle Process Cloud Service to use a Message Start or Form Start event.
You can use the following kinds of start events:
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Message Start events with simple type parameters
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Message Start events with complex business type parameters
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Form Start events, which can use a mixture of types as parameters
In Oracle Visual Builder, you can map the message parameters to page variables, business objects, or service connection endpoints. You can then set up forms and action chains that execute your processes, and tables or lists that display processes and tasks. An Add Task Actions Quick Start for lists and tables allows you to add components that perform a task.
If you want to display the contents of the message parameters that you specify, you
can set up a data association for the message in Oracle Process Cloud
Service, and then use it in a description property in the
getTask endpoint in Oracle Visual Builder.
Configure the Connection to a Process Server
When developing applications that use business processes, you configure the settings used to connect to the process server, the processes that are available to your application and the credentials that are used when communicating with the processes on the process server.
The options that you select in the Process Configuration editor determine how a process user is authenticated when communicating with the processes on the process server and the processes that can be selected as targets of process aliases in your application.
You will see a message in the Processes browser and in the Process Configuration window if no Process Cloud Service is associated with your instance. You will need an administrator to specify the URL of a process server in the Tenant Settings window before you can configure the connection between the visual application and the process server.
You can use the Process Configuration window to choose the authentication method that will be used for accessing processes during development. The option only applies during the development of the application. When an application is staged or published, access is always based on the permissions granted to the signed-in user and authenticated using the Identity Manager. By default, access to processes when designing the application and for staged and published applications is based on the signed-in developer’s or user’s credentials. This means, that by default, the processes that a developer can access might be different from the processes that a logged in user can access.
During development, a developer can choose to enable basic authentication and provide the credentials of a user registered on the process server. Selecting basic authentication enables the developer to sign in to the process server as a different user and access processes that they wouldn't be able to otherwise. When selected, the developer can provide the credentials of different users to access the processes available to that user. These credentials and basic authentication are not used when the application is staged or published.
Developers using traditional Oracle Cloud accounts can only use basic authentication for access to the process server. Access to all the processes is as a single user when designing the application and when accessing the staged and published applications. Access to processes is based on the user's credentials that are supplied in the Process Configuration window, not the credentials of the developer or user. This means that the access to processes for the developer and a signed-in user will be the same.
When you are developing your application, you can create process aliases that target processes deployed on production instances or test instances of the process server. When you select Allow test instance in the Process Configuration editor, you can add process aliases and select processes deployed on test instances as the target. When deselected, you can only choose processes on the runtime instance (deployed processes configured as default) as targets. You can switch between targets on the test and runtime instances by selecting Test or Runtime in the Process Configuration editor. When you select Runtime, the application uses the deployed process marked as default on the runtime instance.
After configuring the connection details, you can choose which deployed processes you want to register with your application. Processes deployed on test instances aren't available if you deselect Allow Test Instances.
Add the URL of an Oracle Process Cloud Service
To use business processes in your application, an administrator needs to specify the server URL of the Oracle Process Cloud Service that will be used with the instance.
After the server URL for the Oracle Process Cloud Service is added, developers can create aliases for business processes on the process server, and access the processes in their visual applications by adding code snippets in the source editor. The developer will need a user account for the Oracle Process Cloud Service to add aliases. Only users with the role of administrator can see the Settings item in the navigation pane on the Home page and open the tenant settings window.
To connect to an Oracle Process Cloud Service instance:
When you make changes in the tenant settings window, you need to reload your browser window for the settings to take effect.