WebCenter Portal provides several prebuilt workflows that handle portal membership notifications, portal subscription requests, and so on. WebCenter Portal workflows rely on the Oracle BPM Worklist, which is installed as a component of Oracle SOA Suite.
WebCenter Portal Worklist integration requires that the BPEL Services provided by SOA Suite share the same WebTier, SSO, and Identity Store with the portal. For this Enterprise Deployment Guide, SOA Suite is installed and configured in the same WebLogic Server Domain and included in the WebTier, SSO, and directory configurations.
For more information on Oracle BPM Worklist features, see Using Oracle BPM Worklist in Developing SOA Applications with Oracle SOA Suite.
The tasks that must be performed to enable the WebCenter Portal workflow functionality in WebCenter Portal are as follows.
Note:
Integrating BPM functionality into portal pages using the BPM Process Portal Resource Catalog requires additional steps not covered in this guide. For more information see Integrating BPM Functionality into WebCenter Portal.oracle.wc_composite_template.jar
.setDomainEnv.sh
files in ASERVER_HOME and MSERVER_HOME, then these customizations will need to be repeated after any domain extension.nodemanager.properties
file in MSERVER_HOME may be overwritten with some values from the nodemanager.properties
file for ASERVER_HOME. Specifically, the ListenAddress
and/or CustomIdentityAlias
values can be reset.SOAAdmin
and BPMWorkflowAdmin
application roles.Parent topic: Configuring the Enterprise Deployment
Back up the environment before re-configuring to include the Portal Workflow Integration with SOA Suite.
This is a quick backup for the express purpose of immediate restore in case of problems in the further steps. The backup destination is the local disk. You can discard this backup once the enterprise deployment setup is complete. At that point, the regular deployment-specific backup and recovery process can be initiated. The Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide provides further details.
To support workflows, WebCenter Portal relies on the BPEL server, which is included with Oracle SOA Suite. For information about installing Oracle SOA Suite as part of this domain, see Extending the Domain with Oracle SOA Suite.
To use workflows in WebCenter Portal, you must install WebCenter Portal SOA Composites by using the portal installer after SOA Suite is installed.
During the initial installation, the Extending the Domain with Oracle WebCenter Portal section included an option to select the Portal SOA Composites. If the option was selected, then proceed to the Extending the Domain to Deploy the WebCenter Portal Workflows section.
To install WebCenter Portal SOA Composites:
To start the installation program:
When the installation program appears, you are ready to begin the installation.
The installation program displays a series of screens, in the order listed in the following table.
If you need additional help with any of the installation screens, click the screen name.
Screen | Description |
---|---|
This screen introduces you to the product installer. |
|
Auto Updates |
Use this screen to automatically search My Oracle Support for available patches or automatically search a local directory for patches that you’ve already downloaded for your organization. |
Use this screen to specify the location of your Oracle home directory. For more information about Oracle Fusion Middleware directory structure, see "Selecting Directories for Installation and Configuration" in Planning an Installation of Oracle Fusion Middleware. |
|
Use this screen to select the type of installation and consequently, the products and feature sets you want to install. To install the SOA Composites for WebCenter Portal, select:
|
|
This screen verifies that your system meets the minimum necessary requirements. If there are any warning or error messages, you can refer to one of the following documents in the Roadmap for Verifying Your System Environment section in Planning Your Oracle Fusion Middleware Infrastructure Installation. |
|
Use this screen to verify the installation options you selected. Click Install to begin the installation. |
|
This screen allows you to see the progress of the installation. Click Next when the progress bar reaches 100% complete. |
|
Review the information on this screen, then click Finish to dismiss the installer. |
Once the installation has been completed, verify that the WebCenter Portal SOA Composite and worklist details application archives have been written to the correct directory structure within ORACLE_HOME as follows:
ls ORACLE_HOME/wcportal/common/soa-composiste/wcp/sca_CommunityWorkflows.jar ls ORACLE_HOME/wcportal/webcenter/applications/WebCenterWorklistDetailApp.ear
Note:
The 12.2.1.0.0 General Availability release has a typo in the deployed path. Verify the directory path and file name carefully.The installation should be repeated once for each shared file system containing a unique ORACLE_HOME. See Summary of the Shared Storage Volumes in an Enterprise Deployment.
WebCenter Portal workflows are deployed to Oracle SOA Server. To prepare the SOA cluster for workflows, you must extend the domain in which Oracle SOA is installed by using the template oracle.wc_composite_template.jar
.
Propagate the start scripts and classpath configuration from the Administration Server's domain directory to the Managed Server domain directory.
If any customizations have been made earlier to the setDomainEnv.sh
files in ASERVER_HOME and MSERVER_HOME, then these customizations will need to be repeated after any domain extension.
On WCPHOST1:
When extending a domain after setting up custom keystores, certificates, and custom identity aliases, the nodemanager.properties
file in MSERVER_HOME may be overwritten with some values from the nodemanager.properties
file for ASERVER_HOME. Specifically, the ListenAddress
and/or CustomIdentityAlias
values can be reset.
Notes:
The ListenAddress
may typically get reset on the MSERVER_HOME nodemanager residing on the same host as the ASERVER_HOME nodemanager. In this topology, WCCHOST1.
In the previous chapters, prior to Enabling SSL Communication Between the SOA Servers and the Hardware Load Balancer, steps 2 through 4 regarding the CustomIdentityAlias
may not be applicable.
MSERVER_HOME/nodemanager/nodemanager.properties
file on each host:Start the entire domain and use Enterprise Manager to verify the deployment of the Portal SOA Composites and WebCenter Worklist Detail application.
After you have configured the domain and configured the Node Manager, you can start the Administration Server, using the Node Manager. In an enterprise Deployment, the Node Manager is used to start and stop the Administration Server and all the Managed Servers in the domain.
To start the Administration Server using the Node Manager:
Start all managed servers in the domain using the Weblogic Server Console, Enterprise Manager, or WLST.
To assure all service dependencies are handled correctly as the applications come online, the recommended order is:
WSM-PM_Cluster
SOA_Cluster
IBR_Servers, Portlet_Cluster, Collab_Cluster
WCC_Cluster
Portal_Cluster
Two deployments are added when the domain is extended with the WebCenter Portal SOA Composites. These include one enterprise application archive and one SOA composites archive. These resources must be successfully deployed and validated before continuing with this domain extension. The SOA composites rely on the application for the human tasks included in the workflows. They are deployed separately, using different processes.
WebCenterWorklistDetailApp.ear
— A standard Java EE web application located in ORACLE_HOME/wcportal/webcenter/applications
sca_CommunityWorkflows.jar
— A SOA Composite located in ORACLE_HOME/wcportal/common/soa-composiste/wcp
This section contains instructions for both the validation and deployment processes.
To validate the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp.ear
application deployment:
Connect to Enterprise Manager as the weblogic_wcp
administrative user.
Verify that the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
application is listed Target Navigation > Application Deployments. If the application link is not listed, see section Deploying the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp Application to the SOA_Cluster.
If the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
application is listed, click on the link and validate that the State is listed as Active and the Health is OK in the Summary view. Also, validate that the SOA_Cluster is listed in the Targets column of the Deployments view.
If the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
does not show the SOA_Cluster in the Targets column, complete the following steps:
From the Domain Application Deployment drop-down list, select Administration > Targets.
From the lock icon in the upper-right corner, select Lock & Edit.
Select WebCenterWorklistDetailApp EAR, then click Change Targets.
In the pop-up window, select SOA_Cluster and then select the All configured Servers in this cluster option.
Click OK. After the changes are complete a confirmation message is displayed.
From the lock icon in the upper-right corner, select Activate Changes.
Restart the managed servers in the SOA_Cluster.
Expand the Target Navigation panel and navigate to the WebLogic Domain > domain-name > SOA_Cluster.
From the WebLogic Cluster drop-down menu, select Deployments.
Verify that the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
is listed with a green up arrow status and a state of Active.
If the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
is not deployed to the SOA_Cluster, perform the deployment after all validation steps are completed. See Deploying the WebCenterWorklistDetailApp Application to the SOA_Cluster.
To validate the sca_CommunityWorkflows.jar
SOA composites deployment:
Expand the Target Navigation panel and navigate to the SOA > soa-infra (WLS_SOA1) service
Click the Deployed Composites tab.
Verify that the CommunitWorkflows [12.2.1.0.0] composite is listed with a green up arrow for status.
If the CommunityWorkflows composite is not deployed to the SOA service, perform the deployment after all validation steps are completed. See Deploying the CommunityWorkflows SOA Composite to the SOA service.
WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
application needs to be deployed, perform the following steps:WebCenterWorklistDetailApp
is not listed.ORACLE_HOME/wcportal/webcenter/applications/WebCenterWorklistDetailApp.ear
.See Deploying Java EE Applications Using Fusion Middleware Control in Administering Oracle Fusion Middleware for details on how to deploy the enterprise application archive.
CommunityWorkflows SOA
composite needs to be deployed, perform the following steps:ORACLE_HOME/wcportal/common/soa-composite/wcp/sca_CommunityWorkflows.jar
weblogic_wcp
.CommunityWorkflows[12.2.1.0.0]
SOA composite dashboard view with several components and services.WebCenter Portal Web services, deployed to Oracle WebCenter Portal, facilitate communication between WebCenter Portal and the SOA server. You must secure these Web service calls.
Note:
Some of the key aliases and other properties values used in this configuration are specifically required by the deployed products. This process has been tuned specifically for a combined topology with Oracle SOA and WebCenter Portal in the same domain. Customizing this process beyond the provided instructions is not recommended.For more information on configuration for a two-domain topology, see Oracle SOA and WebCenter Portal - WS-Security Configuration in Installing and Configuring Oracle WebCenter Portal.
Set up WS-Security by creating a security application stripe and keystore for WebCenter Portal and the SOA Suite BPEL Server to use. Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c implements these keystores using the Keystore Security Service (KSS) configured via Enterprise Manager or WLST commands.
For more information, see Configuring Keystores for Message Protection in Securing Web Services and Managing Policies with Oracle Web Services Manager.
For syntax and reference information about the KSS commands, see OPSS Keystore Service Commands in Oracle Fusion Middleware Infrastructure Security WLST Command Reference.
Before you configure WebCenter Portal with SOA Suite, understand and verify the SOAAdmin
and BPMWorkflowAdmin
application roles.
The memberships of the SOAAdmin and BPMWorkflowAdmin application roles can be listed as follows:
ORACLE_COMMON_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh
connect('weblogic_wcp','password', 't3://ADMINVHN:7001')
listAppRoleMembers(appStripe="soa-infra", appRoleName="SOAAdmin")
listAppRoleMembers(appStripe="soa-infra", appRoleName="BPMWorkflowAdmin")
To revoke a user or group membership from an application role, consider following WLST examples:
revokeAppRole(appStripe="soa-infra", appRoleName="BPMWorkflowAdmin", principalClass="weblogic.security.principal.WLSUserImpl", principalName="weblogic") revokeAppRole(appStripe="soa-infra", appRoleName="BPMWorkflowAdmin", principalClass="weblogic.security.principal.WLSGroupImpl", principalName="Administrators")
To specifically grant a user membership to an application role, follow this example:
grantAppRole(appStripe="soa-infra", appRoleName="BPMWorkflowAdmin", principalClass="weblogic.security.principal.WLSUserImpl", principalName="weblogic_wcp")
For the LDAP group configurations in the enterprise deployment environment, it is not necessary to grant the weblogic_wcp
user specific access. The WCPAdministrators
group should already be part of the SOAAdmin
application role and inherit membership to the BPMWorkflowAdmin
application role.
For more information about configuring a remote LDAP server for the enterprise deployment, see Creating a New LDAP Authenticator and Provisioning Enterprise Deployment Users and Group.
For more information about SOA application role configurations, see Configuring Roles for Administration of an Enterprise Deployment.
WebCenter Portal uses BPEL server to host internal workflows, such as worklists, membership notifications, subscription requests, and so on. BPEL Services are configured on the SOA Managed Servers. To enable workflow functionality for WebCenter Portal, a connection to the BPEL service is required.
Note:
WebCenter Portal workflows must be deployed on the SOA managed server that WebCenter Portal is configured to use. See also, Back-End Requirements for WebCenter Portal Workflows in Installing and Configuring Oracle WebCenter Portal.
To configure a connection for worklist notifications:
After you create the connection to the BPEL Server, validate the connection to be sure it is working properly.
Use the WLST command listWorklistConnections
to display the configured connections and validate the connection details.
For example:
listWorklistConnections(appName='webcenter', server='WC_Portal1')
Use the listed URL property value to construct a valid worklist application URL and validate access using a browser. Append the listed URL property value with the path /integration/worklistapp
, to generate an appropriate URL for testing.
WebCenter Portal can use human workflows (requiring human interaction), which are integrated with SOA workflows. The SOA server can configure email so that notifications are delivered to a user's inbox, where the user can accept or reject the notification.
This topic briefly explains how to enable email notifications and set your mail server details to have WebCenter Portal workflow notifications sent through email. Both outbound and incoming email addresses or mailboxes that are dedicated to portal workflow notification and reply processing are needed for full functionality. For a more detailed description, see Configuring Human Workflow Notification Properties in Administering Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
Testing of the WebCenter Portal invitation and membership workflows and email notifications can be performed using end-user accounts and requires specific portal run-time configuration to set up the test case.
See Task 7 in the Configuration Roadmap for WebCenter Portal Workflows section in the Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal Guide for more information.