building a composite business process from scratch with sap netweaver bpm guide 3

Building a Composite Business Process from Scratch with SAP NetWeaver BPM – Guide 3

Designing and Integrating a Business Rule as Web Service into Process

Applies to: SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment 7.1

Summary This guide explains how to create a decision table within the rules composer and expose this business rule as web service and integrate it into business process. During the run time you are able to see how the business rule can control the process flow. Download the Source Files here

Author: Jie Deng

Company: SAP AG

Created on: 28 November 2008

Author Bio Jie Deng is a Product Manager in SAP AG Germany. In this role, Jie focuses on the area of Business Process Management, Business Activity Monitoring as well as process monitoring and reporting. She is responsible for the rollout to customers as well as roll-out within the organizations. Jie has been working for the SAP organization for eight years and has been part of the Product Management Group in the SAP NetWeaver BI area for six years. In 2006, Jie

joined the Product Management Group in the BPM area.

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Table of Contents Step 1 — Create a Decision Table within Rules Composer...............................................................................3 Step 2 — Expose the Rule Project as a Web Service......................................................................................21 Step 3 — Define Logical Destination for the Generated Web Service in NetWeaver Administrator................21 Step 4 — Integrate this Web Service via Automated Activity into Process......................................................22 Related Content................................................................................................................................................27 Copyright...........................................................................................................................................................28



Step 1 — Create a Decision Table within Rules Composer

1. Launch the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio and open the Rules Composer Perspective (Window Open Perspective

Other…; next select ‘Rules Composer’ and click ‘OK’).

2. Create a new Development Component Project of type Rules Composer. For this select ‘File’ ‘New Project’ from the menu. Next choose ‘Development Component’ underneath the ‘Development Infrastructure’ node. Press Next.



3. Here we define the type of the Development Component. Choose ‘Rules Composer’ and click on ‘Next’.

4. Next we specify the location of the DC. For the purpose of this example we will make it a local development component. Choose that option and click ‘Next’



5. Name the project module_4_exercise_3 and click ‘Finish’.

6. Expand the Rules project and choose import from the context menu of the ‘wsdl’ folder you’ll find underneath the ‘src’ folder. In this step we will import the XSD to be used by the decision table.

7. For our example we need some

data types on which the decision table is relying. We have defined these data types in XML format in an external XSD (XML Schema Definition) file. In this step we will import this XSD file into our project.



8. Choose Web services XSD as the import file type and click ‘Next’.

Note: Another option for you to define the data types is to import Java types. You could also use a combination of XSD files and Java types.

9. Choose the ‘File System’ option and click ‘Next’



10. Click on Browse and choose the approval.xsd file that was provided to you.

11. Click ‘Finish’.



12. In order to make the data types available to the Rules Composer, you have to build the project first. Simply right-click on the project’s name and select ‘Development Component Build…’ from the context menu.

13. From the Project Explorer expand the ‘Rules Modeling’ node and double click on ‘Aliases’.

14. In the majority of cases the

XSD could be very complex with ugly field names and highly nested structures. To have a friendly and human readable format we define aliases. In the next few steps we will define the aliases for the XSD we imported.



15. On the right pane choose ‘XSD Aliases’

16. Click on ‘Add XSD Elements’



17. From the resulting pop up choose Approval Request and click Finish

18. You can expand and inspect

the XSD that we imported in step 10. By selecting one line and pressing the F2 button, you would be able to rename the fields as needed. We don’t need that for our exercise.

20. Create a new ruleset by choosing ‘New Ruleset’ from the context menu of the ‘Rules Modeling’ node (as is shown in the screenshot)



21. Give it a speaking name for example ‘ApprovalNeededRuleset’ and click OK. To the right of the Project Explorer an appropriate tab for managing your ruleset will be opened. Within a ruleset you can define rules and decision tables.

22. At the bottom of the ‘Overview’ tab you can identify the “Decision Tables” section of your ruleset. Click on ‘New…’ to create a new decision table. An alternative would be to create a new decision table by choosing the corresponding menu item from the context menu of your newly created ruleset in the Project Explorer.



23. Provide the decision table the name ‘ApprovalNeededDecisionTable’ and click ‘Next’.



24. Here we define the input condition. Choose ‘ApprovalRequest/requestorCountry’ from the top panel and click on the arrow down button as is shown in the figure.

25. Repeat the previous step to include ‘ApprovalRequest/orderTotalAmount’ as well. The resulting condition is shown in the figure. Click ‘Next’. We express by this step that the decision table is relying on two fields: the country of the requester and the total amount of his purchase request.



26. Next we select the action/ouput. Choose the attribute ‘ApprovalRequest/approvalNecessary’ and click on the arrow down button.

27. Then click Finish.



28. The first condition we want to create should express, that an approval is not necessary for the country ‘United States’ if the total amount is less than 150000. To edit the condition, navigate to the ‘Decision Tables’ tab, double click on the ‘Default Value’ entry in the requestorCountry column, and change it to read United States.

29. Next move to the ‘orderTotalAmount’ column and double click on the field containing ‘0’. Enter ‘<150000’.

30. Finally double click on the first entry of the ‘approvalNecessary’ column and select ‘false’ from the drop-down list. With that you’ve finished you first entry in the decision table, expressing that for United States an approval is not necessary, if the total amount is below 150000.

31. Next we want to define what should happen in case the total amount exceeds 150000. For this we have to define another condition. Right-click in the orderTotalAmount column on the ‘<150000’ field and select ‘Add Condition Values’ from the context menu.



32. In the dialog that pops up enter the new condition “>=150000”. Click on OK. This dialog allows you to add even more conditions if needed.

33. What’s left is to set the appropriate “approvalNecessary” field to true (double-click the second field in the ‘approvalNecessary’ column and select ‘true’). This indicates that an approval is necessary in case the request origins in United States and exceeds 150000.

34. We can add more regions by right-clicking in the United States field and choosing ‘Add Condition Values’ from the context menu.



35. In the dialog that pops up, add as many countries as you need. In our example we add ‘Germany’ and ‘china’ as additional countries. Close the dialog by clicking on OK.

36. As result you get a complete decision table. You can adapt values as you like by double-clicking the appropriate field in the table and adjusting its contents to your needs.

37. The last step is to create a rule that wraps the decision table (that is: the rule calls the decision table for evaluation). Rules are the starting point for a rules engine and therefore we have to add at least one rule that can be executed by the rules engine. To do this click on ‘New Rule’ from the context menu of the ruleset. Another option would be to click on the ‘Overview’ tab of the ruleset and click on the ‘New…’ button in the ‘Rules’ section.



38. Give the rule a name (e.g. ApprovalNeededRule) and click on OK.

39. The rules editor opens. Here you can define if-then-else cascades. Click on the ‘+’-sign after the ‘if’-statement

40. Click once on ‘Operation.isSuccessful()’ and select the Boolean value ‘TRUE’ from the context dialog.

41. Next click on the Boolean value ‘false’ after the ‘Equals’ keyword. Another context dialog opens. Once again select the Boolean value ‘TRUE’. With that you have defined the condition under which the rule will be fired. As this equation is always true we made sure that the decision table will always be executed.



42. Now click on the ‘+’-sign after the ‘then’-statement.

43. Expand the node ‘Evaluate-DecisionTable’ and choose ‘ApprovalNeededDecisionTable’. With that you define what should happen in case the ‘if’-clause is true (which is always the case in our example).



44. The final rule should look as shown. Now you can save, build, and deploy your rule.



Step 2 — Expose the Rule Project as a Web Service Please refer to following resource to download the Web Service Generation tool and follow the description to generate the rules project to web service:

− https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-rules-management?rid=/webcontent/uuid/f066ec08-474b-2b10-4a97-b66d605de037 Web Service Generation Tool for Invoking Rules

− https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/11081 --> Example for how to generate web service

If you test the generated web service in web service navigator, you should get the result as the following screenshot.

Step 3 — Define Logical Destination for the Generated Web Service in NetWeaver Administrator Please refer to Guide1 Step 1 Configuration E. Define Logical Destination


https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-rules-management?rid=/webcontent/uuid/f066ec08-474b-2b10-4a97-b66d605de037

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-rules-management?rid=/webcontent/uuid/f066ec08-474b-2b10-4a97-b66d605de037

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/11081

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/a0886795-eaa0-2b10-7c97-d81b97372327


Step 4 — Integrate this Web Service via Automated Activity into Process 1. Open process composer and

add automated activity ‘Check Amount’ as the process step between “Enter Purchase Request” and “Approve Purchase Request”. Connect the Gateway as shown in the screenshot on the right side.

2. Navigate to ‘Project Explorer’ and expand node ‘process modeling’

‘service interfaces’ ‘WSDL Files’ and right mouse click to select the context menu ‘Import WSDL’.



3. Now please select option “Remote Location / File System”. (you can also select the option Service Registry, therefore you need first to publish this web service into Service Registry).

4. Enter the following URL into the required field:

http://localhost:50000/approvalruleset/approvalrulesetservice?wsdl

5. Leave the setting as it is and click on ‘finish’ to import the WSDL into SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio.

6. Once the WSDL is imported, you are able to assign this Service to the automated activity. Please Open the properties window of ‘Check Amount’ and assign the imported WSDL to this activity.






7. Assign the logical destination which you have created in Step3 to this automated activity.

8. Now we need to enhance the field ‘ApprovalNecessary’ into the XSD file which we already imported before. ‘Approval Necessary’ is the outcome of the business rule which we defined, and we need this field for mapping purpose. To do so, please go to Project Explorer and open the already imported XSD file‘approvalprocess’.

9. On the right side you will see the definition of this XSD file. Now please double click on the Type ‘PurchaseOrder’ to open this complex Data Type.



10. Right mouse click on the complex data type ‘PurchaseOrder’ and select ‘Add Element’ from the context menu.

11. Add the name

‘approvalNecessary’ and set the type to ‘boolean’. Then don’t forget to click on ‘save’ button to save all these changes.

12. Open the property window of

automated activity ‘Check Amount’ again and navigate to the tab ‘Input mapping’. Please do the mapping as the screenshot shown on the right side.

13. Navigate to the tab ‘Output Mapping’ and do the mapping as the screenshot shown on the right side.



14. Now we need to define the condition line for the Gateway as the last step. Please navigate to the property window of condition ‘Above Limit’ and set this Gateway as the default gateway.

15. Navigate to the property window of condition ‘Under Limit’ and enter the condition as shown in the screenshot. Please save all changes which you made. For Details about how to edit the condition line, please refer to Exercise B Step 8.

16. Now you can build and deploy this process again (details please refer to Exercise B)

Details Please refer to Guide 1 Step 9: Build and Deploy

17. Now you can start and run the process to see how the business rule can control the process flow. Case 1: please enter the product quantity e.g. “1” within the task UI of human activity ’Enter Purchase Request’. You’ll see that the purchase order is created automatically without the manual approval. Case 2: please enter the product quantity e.g. ‘200’. You will see that order total amount is above the limit based on the business rule, and purchase manager needs to approve this request manually.

Details for start and run the process please refer to Guide 1 Step 10 and 11.



Related Content Building a Composite Business Process from Scratch with SAP NetWeaver BPM - Guide 1

Building a Composite Business Process from Scratch with SAP NetWeaver BPM - Guide 2

Building a Composite Business Process from Scratch with SAP NetWeaver BPM – Source files


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