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The Oracle BPEL Process Manager

BPEL + Human Workflow

Feature Preview Webinar Series

Kevin Clugage, kevin.clugage@oracle.com

Product Director
David Shaffer, david.shaffer@oracle.com
Director of Product Management, Oracle BPEL Process Manager
Bhagat Nainani
Director of Development, Oracle Integration

Agenda
• Workflow Requirements

• BPEL as Workflow Engine

• Oracle Architecture
• BPEL4People

• New 10.1.3 Workflow Capabilities

• Demo

• Q&A and Comments

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 Workflow Services in Oracle BPEL PM 10.1.3
March 14, 2006

Bhagat Nainani
Director of Development
Oracle AS Integration

Composite Application requirements

There is a continuous need for enterprises to tie disparate applications and services into
end-to-end process flows.

Goals
• Compress the total processing time (Real
Time)
Web Exception Mgt
.NET Schedule Delivery of Modem • Connectivity to systems, services and
people
SAP Inventory Mgt
Portal Customer
• Better visibility (Auditing, Reporting)

Switches Manual
• Ability to easily change the process
IT Setup

• Incremental roll out

Mainframe Payment Processing

Management Console
Reporting

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The Oracle BPEL Process Manager
Comprehensive business process platform for connecting systems, services,
people and partners
Eclipse, JDeveloper

BPEL Designer B2B Adapter

RosettaNet, UCCNet

EDI, AS2

Partners
XML Web Services (Sync. and Async.)

Java Services (EJB ..)

Portal
Services
Data Transformation (XSLT, XQuery)

Rules and Decision Services

Application Server

Systems Technology Adapters (JMS, AQ, File, FTP )

ADF
BPEL PM Enterprise Application Adapters (Oracle, PSFT, SAP ..)

Legacy System Adapters (CICS, IMS ..)

Integration People
Dashboard Enterprise Data Hub
Data Virtualization, Data Synchronization

Notification Services (Mail, Wireless)

User Workflow
Identity Services (OID, LDAP, JAZN)

Human Workflow Services in BPEL Process

Manager

System Human

BPEL

BPEL Human Workflow services enable you to interleave

human interactions and connectivity to systems/services into
a single end to end process flow

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Human Workflow Requirements

Task routing –
Task assignment to
various flow patterns and
Users, roles, groups
assignment rules

Escalation and Notification to users/groups -

Delegation rules Email, Voice, Pager, SMS …

Customizable Worklist, Task History and Audit,

Task forms, attachments Productivity Reports

Workflow Services – Exchange Patterns

“Get Approvals”

“Assign Task”

“Change routing”

“Task Complete” “All Approvals

BPEL Process BPEL Process Complete”

“Assign tasks to role or group (from directory)” “Flow patterns”, “Routing rules”

“List work items”

“Escalate Task”

“Notify manager” “Complete task”

“Get weekly
productivity report”
“Task Resolved”
BPEL Process

“Escalation and Delegation rules” “Worklist (tasks, forms, attachments, reports)”

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Workflow Services with BPEL PM 10.1.2
• Introduced “Workflow Patterns”
• Various task flows implemented using BPEL activities
• Workflow services for
• Task assignment, routing, escalation etc.
• Identity Management – OID, LDAP etc.
• Notification via various channels (email, voice, pager..)

• Comprehensive Worklist
• Cross platform support – workflow services run on
multiple application servers (Oracle, JBoss, BEA
Weblogic & IBM Websphere)

Workflow Services with BPEL PM 10.1.3

New .task metadata file introduced..
1. Task Configuration
• Task title, payload, outcomes, form, priority, expiration etc.
2. Routing Slip
• Task Flow - Simple approval, sequential, parallel flow, ad-hoc workflow,
FYI task etc.
• Assignment and routing policy
• Assign task to User/Group/Role
• Static or dynamic assignment
• Rules based on task outcome or payload content, title etc.
• Escalation, renewal, expiration criteria
3. Notification preferences
• Notify assignee, creator, all participants etc of task status changes
4. Task Forms
• Auto-generated JSP forms, custom JSF forms or XSL may be used to
render task data in worklist

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Workflow as a Service

WSDL Contract

Human Workflow
Service

Assign
Task

Update
Task
Task
Complete
Worklist

BPEL
Process

(1) assign tasks to a user/role

(2) wait for task completion as part of an end to end process flow

10.1.3 BPEL PM – Human Workflow Services

Workflow Services

Task Management Identity Service

Service
(Task data, forms, (Users, Roles)
Attachments)
Portal

Task Routing
Task Assignment
Service Task Query
BPEL Process History/Audit
(Assignment, Service
Dispatching) (Task listing, Worklist
Reporting )

User Metadata Notification

Service Service Email client
(Rules, (Email & wireless)
work queues )

Identity Management Notification Channels

Email
OID, LDAP, JAZN
Oracle AS Wireless
DB (Voice, SMS, Pager)

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 Workflow Services – Task Flow
Task Routing
• Multiple patterns out-of-the-box Service

• Simple Task Assignment

• Sequential workflow
• Parallel workflow (review/voting)
• Adhoc workflow
• FYI task
• Many variations - automatic escalation, renewal etc.
• Tasks may be on renewed or escalated on expiration
• Reminders may be sent when tasks are about to expire

New in 10.1.3
• New Design time UI in 10.1.3 to model these patterns

• Completely parameterized tasks – no BPEL code

generation
• Can mix-and-match above patterns to create complex
patterns
• Pluggable Assignment Service

User Worklist
• Worklist Application
• Customizable and extensible worklist Task Query
Service
• Display tasks based on user profiles
• View My tasks, group tasks, tasks created by me, reportee tasks
• Search tasks based on priority, date, status, process etc.
• Task details
• Standard task attributes – title, assignee, status, comments etc.
• Task history – based on approval sequence and tracking fields

• Perform actions on task

• Update task data, attachments, flex fields
• Custom actions - approve, reject, defer etc – vary with type of task
• System actions – delegate, escalate, withdraw, renew, reassign etc.
• Adhoc routing
• Public API for all worklist operations – EJB, WSIF/Java, HTTP/SOAP

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Worklist – New 10.1.3 features Task
Management
Service

• Work Queues
• Standard work queues – high priority tasks, tasks due soon, new
tasks etc
• Custom work queues - Users can define new work queues based on
User Metadata
specific search criteria Service

• Proxy work queues – can grant access to other users to selected

work queues. Other users can act on your behalf on those tasks
• Rules Integration
• User rules – can define custom delegation, auto-approval or vacation
rules
• Group rules – can define auto-assignment rules for roles or groups -
example round-robin, least-busy etc.
• Built-in reports
• Productivity reports, Cycle time reports, Unattended tasks report
• Improved Flex field mapping
• Can map specific payload attributes to flex fields for easy searching.
custom views etc.

Identity Service Identity

Service

• Links up workflow service to user Directories

• Provides access to users or roles
• User privileges, group memberships
• User properties – contact info, organization hierarchy
• Types of users – end user, process owner, admin etc.
• Out of the box plug-ins for OID, LDAP, JAZN/File
• Can write Custom plug-in for other user/role repositories

New in 10.1.3
• Pluggable Authentication, Authorization and user/group lookup
functions
• Multi-realm support
• Can point to multiple directory services from same BPEL server

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Modeling workflow in the BPEL designer
JDeveloper

BPEL Designer

BPEL Process Workflow Service

Initiate
<receive>

1. Model workflow pattern

assignTask
<invoke> Task Flow
Sequential, parallel,
onTaskComplete Adhoc, FYI ,,,
<receive>
Task Details
Title:
Check
Priority: 2b.
Outcome 2a. Creator: Automatically
Automatically Expiration Date: configures
generates Outcomes:
setPayload Task and
BPEL routing slip
Routing Slip
fragment (assignment policy) for Workflow
End
Service
Notifications

Escalation rules

Form
(Payload display)

Demo ….

Worklist and JDev workflow UI

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 Demo Scenario – Help Desk Request Flow
Help Desk BPEL Process
HelpDesk App
Receive
Request
James
Cooper
Get Ticket
Details

User Task Human

Workflow

Assign tasks

John Irving
Receive Steinbeck Stone
Response

Set Outcome

Email

Notify
Customer

end

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