BPM Suite 12c: Getting started with BPM Studio (JDeveloper) and Process Composer using Process Asset Manager (PAM)

We see a clear trend with Oracle BPM Suite that the Process Composer – the browser based modeling IDE – is getting richer in functionality. Before too long, virtually all modeling/design and many implementation activities will be supported by Process Composer. With the upcoming Process Cloud Service where the process is created in its entirety through browser based tooling, this is of course necessary.

It will be a common practice to work on business processes both in Process Composer and in BPM Studio (JDeveloper). Exchanging the process definition between these two environments is essential for smooth collaboration. In this article, I provide some pointers to get going with Process Composer in BPM Suite 12c (12.1.3) and the interaction with BPM Studio – based on the Process Asset Manager (PAM) as well as ‘plain’ export/import.

Getting started with BPM Process Composer

Process Composer is available at http://host:port/bpm/composer.

On the home page, there are several areas that you can step into: business architecture and BPM processes are the main ones. To create a new BPM project, click on the plus icon in the BPM Project title area. Provide the name and description of the project and select an existing or new space.

Click on the Save button to create the new space and project.

The list of all projects is shown.You can click on the newly created project to enter it.

The project home is presented – with very little in it as it is new.

Click on the plus icon to create a new BPM process.

Provide the name of the process and a description. Click on the create button.

The new process is listed on the project home page. Click on it to start editing the process definition.

The virgin BPM Process is shown in the editor. You can edit

For example, drag an interactive activity (human task) to the process.

Next, when the activity has been added, you edit its properties:

Note: if the trigger type of your Start node is of type None – which happens to be the default – the when you checkout the BPM process into BPM Studio (JDeveloper), you will find that there is no BPMN process component included in the Composite application diagram or file. Thanks to Niall Commiskey for helping to figure out this particilar detail. As soon as the trigger type is set to Message or Event, the BPMN Component will be included in the Composite – as would be our expectation – or at least mine.

 

 

Publish to PAM

At some point you may want to share your edit results with the rest of the world – or at least make them available for editing in BPM Studio. By publishing your session, the current state of the process definition is recorded in PAM (the Process Asset Manager) and becomes available for use in JDeveloper.

Click on the Publish icon:

Provide a comment to describe this next step in the life of the BPM project and click on Publish:

Access PAM from JDeveloper

The Process Asset Manager is accessed from JDeveloper (BPM Studio) through a special type of connection that is created in a similar fashion as all other connection resources:

Select PAM from the list of IDE Connection types.

Press Next on Welcome page of the connection wizard:

Provide the login details – for example weblogic

and the host and port for the AdminServer for the WebLogic domain running the BPM Suite/SOA Suite runtime infrastructure:

When you press Finish and the connection details are correct, the connection is added to the list:

From the Windows menu, select the option Process Asset Manager Navigator.

This will open a new window which lists the PAM Connections and the high level content for each of them (Space and Project):

You can inspect the publication history for the project that started its life in Process Composer

And the project can be Checked Out to make it available in JDeveloper – in the current application:

You need to provide a file system location:

And after checking out..

The project will open in JDeveloper:

including the BPM process:

 

After making changes to the process definition and the other project assets, these changes can be published to PAM – for further inspection and manipulation by other developers in JDeveloper or in Process Composer:

A checkin comment has to be provided:

and the changes are written to PAM (actually a database)

In Process Composer, the checkin is listed:

And the changed process definition can be reviewed and edited:

 

Exchanging projects without using the Process Asset Manager

Projects exported from Oracle Business Process Composer can be imported into Oracle BPM Studio. Exporting a project to your local file system allows you to share projects without using Oracle Process Asset Manager (PAM). You can export a project from the application welcome pages’ project list. Find the project you want to export from the list of projects located in the project list and click the Download icon.

Alternatively, use the main menu – hidden away under the circular icon in the top left hand corner (it took me a while to figure out that this icon was actually the hook into this menu)

Choose a location on your local file system and click Save.

Import is an option in JDeveloper’s File menu:

Specify the type of import:

and select the file to import:

The list of available projects in the file is listed and when you press finish the actual import is performed:

Note that Export from JDeveloper (or from PAM) is done in a similar way. Import can be done from the main menu (opened from the big icon ) in Process Composer.