1.Introduction to the Oracle BPM Suite
The Oracle BPM Suite provides an
integrated environment for developing, administering, and using business
applications centered around business processes.
The Oracle BPM Suite provides the following:
·
Enables you to create process models
based on standards with user friendly applications. It enables collaboration
among process developers and process analysts. Oracle BPM supports BPMN 2.0 and
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) from modeling and implementation to
run time and monitoring.
·
Enables process analysts and process
owners to customize business processes and Oracle Business Rules.
·
Provides a web-based application for
creating business processes, editing Oracle Business Rules, and task
customization using predefined components.
·
Expands business process management
to include flexible, unstructured processes. It adds dynamic tasks and supports
approval routing using declarative patterns and rules-driven flow
determination.
·
Enables collaboration provided by
Oracle Business Process Management Process Spaces, which drives productivity
and innovation.
·
Unifies different stages of the
application development life cycle by addressing end-to-end requirements for
developing process-based applications. Oracle BPM unifies the design,
implementation, run time, and monitoring stages based on an Service Component
Architecture (SCA) infrastructure. This allows different personas to
participate through all stages of the application life-cycle.
See Section 1.2,
"Oracle BPM User Personas" for more information about the
user personas defined for the Oracle BPM Suite.
The Oracle BPM Suite provides a
seamless integration of all stages of the application development life cycle
from design time and implementation to run time and application management.
The Oracle BPM Suite is layered on
the Oracle SOA Suite and shares many of the same product components, including:
·
Business Rules
·
Human Workflow
·
Oracle Adapter Framework for
Integration
Figure 1-1 shows a high-level architectural view of the Oracle BPM
Suite.
1.2 Oracle BPM User Personas
Different
stages of application development life cycle require interaction from different
types of users. Table
1-1 outlines typical
users of Oracle BPM Suite and their responsibilities. It also lists the
components of the Oracle BPM they would use to perform their work.
These
user personas are used within the examples in this guide.
User
Persona
|
Description
|
Process
analyst
|
Process
analysts are responsible for creating the initial flow of a business process
and documenting its steps. This also includes identifying and defining the
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and high-level rules that define the
routing artifacts of the business process. This persona can also perform
simulations to calculate and estimate the return on investment.
Process
analysts typically use the Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite or Business
Process Composer to create process models. They can also use process analyst
role within Oracle BPM Studio.
|
Process
developer
|
Process
developers are responsible for implementing the process models created by
process analysts. Each step in the process requires an implementation. The
process developer is responsible for integrating the business process with
back-end applications such as databases.
Process
developers typically use Oracle BPM Studio to model and implement the
components of a business application. They may occasionally use Oracle
Business Process Composer (Business Process Composer) for modeling basic
processes.
|
Business
administrator
|
Business
administrators are responsible for administering the BPM infrastructure.
Typical activities include the installation and setup of BPM environments and
the overall management of the Oracle BPMN Service Engines that are hosting
the business processes.
This
persona can be delegated the responsibilities for administering the
organizational assets such as users, groups, organization units, calendars
and holidays.
The
main tool used by business administrators is the Oracle Enterprise Manager
and automated tools such as Ant. Business administrators also use Oracle
Business Process Management Workspace (Process Workspace) to manage
organization units, role assignments and perform other activities like
creating workflow advanced routing declarations
|
Process
owner
|
Process
owners are responsible for controlling and managing deployed business
processes. They are responsible for the overall supervision of the running business
process. They often use metric analysis tools such as dashboards to
understand the current state of the managed business processes.
Process
owners typically use Process Workspace. They also use Business Process
Composer to change the behavior of a process by editing Oracle Business
Rules. They may also use the Oracle BAM console to view metrics dashboards.
|
Process
participant
|
Process
participants are the people who use the business applications created with
the Oracle BPM Suite.
Process
participants typically use Process Workspace or Process Spaces.
|
This section
provides a general description of the major components of the Oracle BPM Suite.
See Section
1.5, "Introduction to the Application Development Life Cycle" for
information about how these components interact within the application development
process.
This section
describes the applications and components used to model and implement business
processes and process-based business applications.
The Oracle BPM
Suite provides two primary applications for modeling and implementing business
processes: Oracle BPM Studio and Oracle Business Process Composer.
Oracle BPM
Studio is a component of the Oracle BPM Suite that provides a user friendly
environment where process analysts can design business process models and run
process simulations. Oracle BPM Studio supports Business Process Management
Notation (BPMN) 2.0.
Oracle BPM
Studio also enables process developers to create working process-based
applications. These applications are Oracle BPM projects that are integrated as
Service Integration composite applications.
You can use
Oracle BPM Studio to implement business processes with other Oracle components
such as adapters, human workflow and business rules. You can then deploy these
processes to Oracle BPM run time.
Oracle BPM
Studio is a part of the Oracle JDeveloper IDE. Oracle BPM Studio enables IT
users to use a single integrated tool to model and edit business processes,
implement the required IT elements, and deploy applications to the run-time
environment.
Oracle BPM
Studio also provides a BPM role that enables business users to use a simplified
version of Oracle JDeveloper that displays only functionality relevant to
process design.
See the Oracle Fusion
Middleware Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process
Management for more information.
Business Process
Composer is a Web-based application that enables business users to collaborate
with process developers and designers. It provides a user friendly environment
for editing processes and process templates created in Oracle BPM Studio.
Process
developers can create a catalog of preconfigured components such as services,
tasks, and rules in Oracle BPM Studio. This catalog can be included in project
templates that process analysts can use to create new projects using Business
Process Composer.
After creating a
project based on a project template, process analysts can incorporate business
catalog elements and perform other required edits defined by the project
template. Process analysts can then deploy these project to theOracle BPM run
time.
Business Process
Composer also enables process analysts to create process blueprints. These are
initial drafts of a process that can be used by process developers who use
Oracle BPM Studio to add further implementation details and refinement to the
project.
Business Process
Composer also enables you to edit Oracle Business Rules at run time. This is
important because policies tend to evolve faster than business processes.
MDS provides a
repository that is used to store data about applications deployed within an
Oracle Fusion Middleware environment. Oracle BPM uses this repository, called
Oracle Business Process Management Metadata Store, to store information about
deployed applications.
Oracle BPM also
uses a separate MDS partition to share projects and project templates between
process analysts and process developers. Figure 1-1,
"The Oracle BPM Suite" shows
how the MDS repository fits within the overall Oracle BPM architecture.
Oracle BPM
projects are containers for the business processes and related resources used
to create a process-based business application. An Oracle BPM project can
contain the following:
·
Organizational
data
·
Activity
guides
·
BPMN
process models
·
Business
catalog
·
Simulation
models
·
Other
resources
Oracle BPM
projects are deployed at run time as Service Integration composite
applications. For more information on working with projects and Service
Integration composite applications see the following documentation:
·
"Working
with Projects and Project Templates" in Oracle Fusion Middleware
Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
·
"Working
with Projects and Project Templates" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Business
Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
·
Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for
Oracle SOA Suite
Oracle
BPM Run Time is responsible for controlling deployed applications. Oracle BPM
run time includes the following components:
The Oracle BPM
Engine provides a run-time environment for running business processes. It
provides native support for both BPMN and BPEL processes.
The
BPM engine is composed of three separate components:
Ø BPMN Engine
The
BPMN engine provides an environment for running BPMN processes.
Ø BPEL Engine
The
BPEL engine provides an environment for running BPEL processes.
Ø Process Core
The Process Core
provides engine functionality that is shared by the BPMN and BPEL engines. Some
of the key functionality performed by the process core includes:
·
Manage
security
·
Generate
audit trails
·
Invoke
services
·
Manage
persistence
Many end-to-end
business processes require human interactions with the process. For example,
humans may be needed for approvals, exception management, or performing
activities required to advance the business process. The human workflow service
provides features such as:
Ø Task routing to
users, groups or application roles.
Ø Deadlines,
escalations, notifications, and other features required for ensuring the timely
performance of a task.
Ø Task forms for
presentation of tasks to end users through a variety of mechanisms, including a
workspace and portals.
Ø Organization,
filtering, prioritization, dispatching rules and other features required for
end users to productively perform their tasks.
1.3.2.3 Oracle Business Rules
Oracle Business
Rules are a component of the Oracle SOA Suite that enable dynamic decisions at
run time allowing, among other features, applications to rapidly adapt to
regulatory and competitive pressures. This increased agility is possible
because process analysts using Oracle Business Rules can create and change
business rules that are separated from the application code. By using Oracle
Business Rules, process analysts can change business rules without stopping
business processes. Also, externalizing business rules enables process analysts
to manage business rules directly, without involving process developers.
1.3.2.4 Oracle WebLogic Server
Oracle WebLogic
Server is an application server that provides a platform for creating and
running J2EE-compliant applications.
The Oracle
Enterprise Manager is a Web-based application that enables system
administrators to control and manage applications running on the Oracle SOA
Suite. Enterprise Manager enables business administrators to configure and
manage business applications and process instances.
The following
sections describe the components of the Oracle BPM Suite that are used by
process participants to perform their day-to-day work. These applications
enable process participants to interact with running business applications
managed by Oracle BPM run time.
Process
Workspace enable process participants to interact with the applications you
create using Oracle BPM. The Process Workspace user interface provides tabs for
each of the following:
Tasks: This page enables process participants to view and
work with their assigned tasks.
Process Tracking: This page
enables process participants to view running process instances.
Standard Dashboards: This page provides out-of-the-box
dashboards for monitoring process performance, task performance, and workload.
Custom Dashboards: This page enables process participants
to define and use custom dashboards based on the measurement data generated by
process instances.
Process
Workspace also enables business administrators to configure and maintain
organizations and roles. See the Oracle Fusion
Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management for more information.
Process Spaces
is a collaborative workspace built on top of Oracle WebCenter PortalSpaces and
enables more productive BPM by increasing collaboration.
See the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business
Process Management for more information.
1.3.4 Other Oracle BPM Suite Components
The
following sections describe other components of the Oracle BPM Suite.
Business Process
Analytics enables process participants to monitor the performance of running
process-based applications. It measures the key performance indicators defined
in a BPM project and stores them in a database. Process participants and
analysts can view the metrics stored in the process analytics databases using
Process Workspace dashboards or Oracle BAM.
1.3.4.2 Guided Business Processes
Guided Business
Processes enable process analysts and developers to group the interactive
activities in your BPM process into a set of milestones that are meaningful to
the process participants. They outline the steps the process participants must
complete, hiding the complexity of the business process.
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