BPM Overview Part-1

  

Introduction to the Oracle Business Process Management Suite (BPM)

The Oracle BPM Suite provides an integrated environment for developing, administering, and using business applications cantered around business processes.

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

A high-level architectural view of the Oracle BPM Suite

5 Primary tools to use BPM:

•  Oracle BPM Studio
•   Oracle Business Process Composer
•   Oracle Enterprise Manager
•   Oracle Admin Console
•  Java API Utilities

The Oracle BPM Suite provides two primary applications for modelling and implementing business processes

Oracle BPM Studio

Oracle BPM Studio is a component of the Oracle BPM Suite that provides a user-friendly environment where process analysts can create business process models and run process simulations.

 Oracle Business Process Composer

Oracle 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.

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.

Oracle Metadata Service (MDS) Repository

Oracle Metadata Service (MDS) provides a repository that is used to store date about applications deployed within an Oracle Fusion Middleware environment. Oracle BPM uses this repository to store information about deployed applications.

Stages of the Oracle BPM Application Development Life Cycle

Process Modeling

The first stage of the application development life cycle is process modeling. During this stage a process analyst creates process models based on real-word business processes and problems.

Implementation

After process analysts model business processes, process developers are responsible for creating business applications based on these models. Using Oracle BPM Studio, process developers implement reusable services and integrate other business systems.

Implementation may include the following types of tasks generally performed by process developers:

•  Data mapping and transformation

• System fault handling

•  Designing and implementing user interfaces using Oracle Human Workflow.

•   Designing Oracle Business Rules

•  Creating dashboards

Deployment

Deployment is the process of transferring an Oracle BPM project from the development environment to the run-time environment. This can be either a testing or production run-time environment.

What is Business Process Management Notation (BPMN)

Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) is an industry standard notation for defining business processes. Oracle BPM support BPMN 2.0.

Business Processes

A business process can be generally defined as a sequence of tasks that after it performed result in a well-defined outcome.

Process Instances

A process instance refers to the specific instance of a business process.  A process instance refers to the work of a specific person within that organization.

Tasks

Tasks are used to represent the work performed by a process.

Events

Events define something that happens during a process.

Gateways

Gateways are used to determine the flow of your process.

Sequence Flows

Sequence flows are used to connect flow objects.

Data Objects

Data objects are variables that are defined during the modelling and implementation of a process. A process instance uses these variables to store specific information.

Modeling, Implementing, and Deploying an Application

The following steps describe each stage of the workflow:

1.    Create process models using Oracle BPM Studio (process analyst / process developer).

2.    Implement the required services and application resources (process developer).

3.    Compile the application (process developer).

4.    Deploy to Oracle BPM runtime (process developer / process administrator).

BPMN Process Editor

The process editor enables you to model business processes by dragging and dropping BPMN components, called flow objects, from the Component Palette.

BPMN Component Palette

The BPM Component Palette contains a list of the BPMN flow objects supported by Oracle BPM. You can model business processes by dragging and dropping these flow objects from the BPM Component Palette to the process editor. 

Property Inspector

The Property Inspector lets you view and edit the properties of the current process in the process editor, or the properties of a selected flow object in the process, if the object participates in property inspection. The flow objects that can be inspected include activity, business rule, call activity, manual task, receive task, script task, send task, and service task.

The Property Inspector lets you view and edit the properties of the current process in the process editor, or the properties of a selected flow object in the process, if the object participates in property inspection. The flow objects that can be inspected include activity, business rule, call activity, manual task, receive task, script task, send task, and service task.

Structure View

The Structure window offers a structural view of the data in the component currently selected in the active window of those windows that participate in providing structure: the diagrams, the navigators, the editors and viewers, and the Property Inspector.

Thumbnail View

The Thumbnail window allows you to display a thumbnail representation of the active business process that is opened in the process editor. Because the Thumbnail view is synchronized with the process editor, it is useful for navigating large processes that do not fit in the process editor window.

By default the Thumbnail window is located next to the Structure window.

Simulation View

The Simulation View allows you to run and see the result of project simulation models.The results of a simulation displayed as a bar chart.

Log Window

The Log Window displays messages, errors, and warnings to the BPM project as well as compilation and deployment of SOA composite applications.