© 2007 IBM Corporation SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW WebSphere Process Server BPEL Business Flow Manager

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 2 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 3 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 4 Business State Machines Elements of WebSphere Process Server Supports all aspects of process integration SOA Core Service Component Architecture Business Objects Common Event Infrastructure Interface Maps Business Object Maps Relation- ships Dynamic Service Selection Supporting Services Mediation Flows (ESB) Business Rules z/OS WebSphere Application Server ND (J2EE Runtime) Human Tasks Business Processes Service Components Business Process Choreographer (BPC) Business Flow Manager (BFM) Human Task Manager (HTM) + + = =

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 5 Example BPEL Process 2 of 2

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 6 Creating WS-BPEL … BPEL is described as an XML Document … Not meant to be particularly human readable! <to variable="shippingRequest" part="customerInfo"/> <invoke partnerLink="shipping" portType="lns:shippingPT" operation="requestShipping" inputVariable="shippingRequest" outputVariable="shippingInfo"> More …

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 7 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 8 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 9 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. WPS claim () completeAndClaimSuccessor() completeAndClaimSuccessor()| complete() BusinessFlowManagerService operations completeAndClaimSuccessor() User / Client Page 1 Page 2 Tasklist Page 3 Page 4

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 10 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 11 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 12 Queries based on Business Data 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 Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 13 Queries based on Business Data 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 14 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 15 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 16 Processes Service Integration Information Services Transformation Maps Data Quality Routines Data Integration FlowsFederation 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)

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 17 II4BPEL - Information Server Data sources - a system in which data resides and/or data management operations can be executed and which provides a JDBC interface - a reference to a data source is modeled by a pre-defined data type (tDataSource), instances of which can be stored in process variables - identified by is JNDI name,the name of the data source defined in WAS Set references - is an abstraction of a table name - are modeled as a data type (tsetReference), so it is possible to pass them to other services (business processes), so data can be shared by reference over different processes - can be used instead of hard-coded table names; flexibility to specify dynamically at runtime which tables to use Concept of data sources and set references

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 18 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 19 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 20 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 21 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), portType); setServiceRefToPartnerLink(subprocess_partnerlink, serviceReference)

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 22 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 23 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 24 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 25 Error Handling … Similar to Try/Catch mechanism

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 26 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 ( ) for each fault, a common fault handler ( ) is handling them all. Within that fault handler, the current fault is analyzed to distinguish failure situations.

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 27 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: /** * 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);

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 28 Summary BFM in WPS 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

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 29 Appendix: Links Announcement Letter – bin/common/ssi/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname=Demonstration&htmlfid=897/ ENUS http://www-306.ibm.com/fcgi- bin/common/ssi/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname=Demonstration&htmlfid=897/ ENUS Detailed lab chart deck on BPC technical updates – Technotes on WID – Technotes on WPS – Business Process Choreographer samples –

SOA on your terms and our expertise Software | WebSphere Process Integration STEW © 2007 IBM Corporation 30 Thank You Merci Grazie Gracias Obrigado Danke Japanese English French Russian GermanItalian Spanish Brazilian Portuguese Arabic Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Thai