© 2007 ibm corporation soa on your terms and our expertise software | websphere process integration...

© 2007 IBM Corporation

SOA on your terms and our expertise

Software | WebSphere Process Integration 6.0.2 STEW

WebSphere Process Server 6.0.2

BPEL Business Flow Manager

2 SOA on your terms and our expertise



Objectives

What's new in Business Flow Manager 6.0.2?

Introduction to

– Server controlled page flow

– Queries based on business data

– Information Integration for BPEL (II4BPEL)

– Dynamic invocation of sub-processes

– Extended support for custom properties

– Access to current fault in fault handler




BusinessState

Machines

BusinessState

Machines

Elements of WebSphere Process ServerSupports all aspects of process integration

SOA Core Service ComponentArchitecture

BusinessObjects

Common EventInfrastructure

InterfaceMaps

BusinessObject Maps

Relation-ships

DynamicService

Selection

DynamicService

Selection

SupportingServices

Mediation Flows(ESB)

Mediation Flows(ESB)

BusinessRules

BusinessRules

z/OS

WebSphere Application Server ND (J2EE Runtime)

HumanTasks

HumanTasks

BusinessProcessesBusiness

ProcessesServiceComponents

Business Process Choreographer

(BPC)

Business Process Choreographer

(BPC)

Business Flow Manager

(BFM)

Business Flow Manager

(BFM)

Human Task Manager (HTM)

Human Task Manager (HTM)

++ ==




Example BPEL Process

2 of 2




Creating WS-BPEL …

BPEL is described as an XML Document …

Not meant to be particularly human readable!<sequence> <assign> <copy> <from variable="PO" part="customerInfo"/> <to variable="shippingRequest" part="customerInfo"/> </copy> </assign>

<invoke partnerLink="shipping" portType="lns:shippingPT" operation="requestShipping" inputVariable="shippingRequest" outputVariable="shippingInfo">More …




Agenda

Server controlled page flow

Queries based on business data

Information Integration for BPEL (II4BPEL)

Dynamic invocation of sub-processes

Extended support for custom properties

Access to current fault in fault handler




Server controlled Page Flow (aka Single Person Workflow)

A common pattern is workflows controlling the flow of UI interactions with a single person.

• The business process specifies a series of human tasks to be performed by the same person.

• The business process controls and drives these tasks providing the person with a flow of UIs.

• The UIs presented to that person are the UI definitions associated with these human tasks.

• Between the human activities, other activities can be specified

Examples of processes interacting with single persons• Book order process

Enter shipping & payment, gift-wrap, place order




Server controlled Page Flow

To enable clients to transition from one user facing activity (human task) of a process to the subsequent, the completeAndClaimSuccessor API is provided.

• Allows to complete an inline human task activity and claim the succeeding activity for the same person in one go.

• Lets the server handle the required logic, instead of complex logic on the client side requiring multiple interactions with the server.

WPSWPS

claim()

completeAndClaimSuccessor()


completeAndClaimSuccessor()| complete()

BusinessFlowManagerServiceoperations


User / ClientUser / Client

Page 1

Page 2

Tasklist

Page 3

Page 4




Agenda










Queries based on Business Data

User defined queries can be based on business data associated with a business process.

For example, – Include business data like Customer or Contact#.

– Or, retrieve process instances for customer Sarah Jones only.

In WMQWF, this feature is known as Global Key Data Container. Benefit:

– Get full context over all existing processes – keep track of inter-process dependencies

– Ease of use - No custom code required





Query properties can be specified for process-level variables storing business data.

• BPEL extension queryProperties can be defined as sub-element for process-level BPEL variable.

• A query property is specified using a BPEL property or an inline definition of a property.

• The type of a query property may be of built-in XML schema simple type or user-defined simple type based on a built-in XML schema type.

The query()method of the generic BPC API allows using query properties via the database view QUERY_PROPERTY.

• Database view QUERY_PROPERTY can be used in select clause, where clause and/or order-by clause of the query() API.





SOA on your terms and our expertise

Select variable that stores business data to be used in queries 1

Add / create query properties for selected variable

2




Agenda










II4BPEL - Information Service Activity

Direct integration of information management services (SQL, ETL, Federation) with BPEL business processes

Access to – Information Server

• Access via WebSphere Information Server Director

– Full SQL: Direct access to relational database systems

Benefits:

– Simplified, faster process development, improved flexibility and performance

– Out-of-box integration - direct data access w/o java coding

– powerful cross-product scenarios

New palette

item




Processes

Service Integration

Information Services

Transformation Maps Data Quality Routines

Data Integration Flows Federation

Information Service Activity … Cross-Product Integration

Information Server – Including discovery of operations and

invocation – Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) / Workflow

scenarios– Federated access to heterogeneous

content sources Full SQL: Direct access to relational

database systems – Inline SQL statements (“SQL snippets”)

allowing direct access to federated data and SQL routines

– Set References to relational tables – avoiding copies

– Late-binding of relation database systems and relational tables used by SQL statements (Data Sources)




Information Service Activity

Information Service activity can be part of any BPEL business process.

BPEL Variables hold configuration data (data sources and set references) and is input to Information Service activity

– Direct mapping of input and output parameters to BPEL variables

Specify details for Information Service activities

New palette

item




Agenda










Dynamic Invocation of Sub-processes

Dynamic determination of the sub-process to be invoked using its name• Sub-process is unknown at authoring time, cannot be statically provided.• Identify sub-process to be called during runtime providing its name.• Lookup service endpoint for currently valid version of sub-process.• Invoke service endpoint.

A Java snippet method (for Java snippets) and an XPath extension function (for Assign activities) are provided to retrieve the service reference of a sub-process:

• getServiceRefForProcessTemplate( processTemplateName )returns the service reference for the specified template; this service reference is to be assigned to a partner link for invocation eventually.

This capability is also known from WMQWF. Benefits:

– More dynamicity & reuse– Flexible process nesting– Versioning of BPEL sub processes




Dynamic Invocation of Sub-processes

When defining a business process in WID...

1. Identify variable that holds the process template name of the sub-process to be invoked.

2. Retrieve service reference for sub-process, and assign service reference to partner link of the invoke activity that will eventually invoke the sub-process.

– Via Java Snippet – using Java method getServiceRefForProcessTemplate

– Via Assign activity – using XPath extension function wpc:getServiceRefForProcessTemplate

3. Provide invoke activity that uses the partner link the service reference has been assigned to previously.

serviceReference = getServiceRefForProcessTemplate(Input.getString(“template_name”),“http://www.sample.com/DynamicProcessCallProcess”, “portType”);

setServiceRefToPartnerLink(“subprocess_partnerlink”, serviceReference)




Agenda










Extended Support for Custom Properties

Enhanced support for process-level custom properties

• APIs to retrieve custom properties of a process template.

• Queries can be based on custom properties specified for a process template using database view PROCESS_TEMPL_ATTRIBUTE.

Extended support for custom properties on activity level

• APIs to set and get custom properties of an activity instance even if the activity has not been reached by process navigation yet.

• Interfaces to allow likewise from within a business process, i.e., as part of its logic.– Java snippet methods to get/set activity level custom properties– XPath extension function to get activity level custom properties

Benefits:

– add activity custom properties for activities during process life time, even before activity has been navigated/started

– more context information available at runtime

– additional way to attach properties to activities and filter on those properties

Note: Not supported for structuring activities (e.g. flow, sequence) and BPEL Event handler




Agenda










Error Handling …

Similar to ‘Try/Catch’ mechanism




Access to Current Fault in Fault Handler

To allow accessing the current fault to be handled, an additional Java snippet method is provided – getCurrentFaultAsException():

• Returns fault data, e.g., fault name, the actual exception, its nature.

• Exposed to Java code snippets in fault handlers.

Typical use cases:

• Analysis of the current fault as part of the implementation of a catchAll fault handler.

• Handling of bpc:runtimeFailure – this fault wraps unexpected failures thrown by the infrastructure, or exceptions thrown by Java code snippets.

Examples:

• For problem analysis purpose, details of a fault are to be recorded in addition to the automatic handling of the fault by the fault handler.

• Instead of providing specific fault handlers (<catch>) for each fault, a common fault handler (<catchAll>) is handling them all. Within that fault handler, the current fault is analyzed to distinguish failure situations.




Access to Current Fault in Fault Handler

Signature of the method to access the current fault:

Example of how to use this method to log a fault in the systemOut.log:

/** * @returns * The Java exception object for the current fault. If this method is called * from a snippet or condition outside a fault handler, null is returned. */public BpelException getCurrentFaultAsException();

BpelException exception = getCurrentFaultAsException();System.out.println("Fault " + exception.getFaultName() + " has been caught");System.out.println(" Detailed Information is: ");exception.printStackTrace( System.out);




Summary

BFM in WPS 6.0.2 adds important features and functions

Highlights are

– Server controlled page flow

– Queries based on business data

– Information Integration for BPEL (II4BPEL)

– Dynamic invocation of sub-processes

– Extended support for custom properties

– Access to current fault in fault handler




Appendix: Links

Announcement Letter– http://www-306.ibm.com/fcgi-bin/common/ssi/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname

=Demonstration&htmlfid=897/ENUS206-244

Detailed lab chart deck on BPC 6.0.2 technical updates – http://w3.webahead.ibm.com/w3ki/display/WPS/Home

Technotes on WID– http://www.ibm.com/software/integration/wid/support/

Technotes on WPS– http://www.ibm.com/software/integration/wps/support/

Business Process Choreographer samples– http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/bpcsamp/index.html




Thank YouMerci

Grazie

Gracias

Obrigado

Danke

Japanese

English

French

Russian

GermanItalian

Spanish

Brazilian PortugueseArabic

Traditional Chinese

Simplified Chinese

Thai

© 2007 ibm corporation soa on your terms and our expertise software | websphere process integration...

Documents

stew websphere process

business process controls

order process

process instances

example bpel process

ibm corporation soa

processlevel bpel variable

business data query