Review at amazon: Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial

Last two weeks i read "Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial" and played with the examples given in this book.

On the packtpub website the following can be found about this book:

What you will learn from this book :

• Build a business process application
• Model executable processes with Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 2.0
• Optimize your processes using process simulation
• Analyze activity with Process Analytics and Business Activity Monitoring
• Integrate business decisions with Business Rules
• Design complex Human Task flows
• Develop rich forms for BPM
• Collaborate with Process Spaces (Social BPM)
• Explore life-cycle management features

What they are not telling is, that this book contains many step by step examples with excellent screenshots. For this reason it is very easy to follow all the steps to set up a running BPM Suite (The installation process is described very detailed for windows) and get a process running.
On more than 500 pages you can find a short introduction in BPMN 2.0, Installation, BPM Studio, Roles, Simulation, ....
If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (like all my reviews: written in german ;-).

Oracle BPM: How to use start and end events

For modelling a process you have to configure your Jdeveloper 11g like shown in this posting. Then you can create easliy a process like this one:

[The behaviour of the tool palette is a little bit weird, because you can not use drag&drop. You have to click an item and then move the mouse inside the graph. Then the item is beneath the mouse cursor and you can place it with a second click.]

The start event can be changed via right mouse click:

[The start event with the envelope is called "message start event"]

Here an excerpt from the official documentation about the start events:

The none start event is used when no instance trigger is defined. Process analysts can use the none start event as a placeholder when the necessary start event of a process is unknown or is defined and implemented later by process developers. None start events are also used to specify the beginning of a process where the process instance is created by another flow object. Although the none start event does not trigger the creation of a process instance, it is required when triggering a process instance using the following flow objects:

• Receive task. The receive task must have the Create Instance property set to true.
• User task implemented with the initiator pattern

The message start event triggers a process instance when a message is received. This message can be sent from another BPMN or BPEL process or from a service. Messages are types of data used for of exchanging information between processes. Just as data objects are used to define the data used within a project, messages are used to define the data used between processes or between a process and a service.
You can exposed a BPMN process as service which enables other processes and applications to invoke the process. To expose a process as a service, your process must begin with a message start event.

The signal start event is similar to a message start event in that it is based on communication from another process or service. However, the message start event responds to a message sent to a specific process. In contrast, the signal start event is a response to a signal broadcast to multiple processes. Signals can be broadcast from a BPMN process using the signal throw event. Using a combination of signal throw and signal start events, you can invoke multiple processes simultaneously.

The timer start event triggers the creation of a process instance based on a specific time condition. You can configure the timer start event to trigger a process instance based on the following:

• A specific date and time. For example, a process could be triggered on December 31, at 11:59 PM.
• A recurring interval. For example, a process could be triggered every 10 hours, 5 minutes, 32 seconds.

The following end events can be used:

• None end event
  like start event
  
• Error end event
  Errors end events are normally used with the error boundary event. The error
  boundary event is used to alter the process flow based on a specific error. This flow usually ends using an error end event.
  
• Message end event
  like start event
  
• Terminate end event
  The terminate end event is used to immediately terminate a process. When a terminate end event is reached, the process ends immediately. There is no error handling or additional clean up performed.
  

BPM on Linux...

Running jdeveloper on Linux is not really a problem. Just unzip the tarball (<11g) or run the installer (11g +) and start with ./jdev.
Jdeveloper 11g starts on Linux but after installing the BPM functionality i got:

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.modeler.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.tests.jdev-test.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.bpm.fusion.soa, oracle.bpm.workflow

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.sca.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:56 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.soa.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler, oracle.sca.mediator, oracle.bpm.modeler, oracle.bpm.modeler.plugins, oracle.sca.modeler.plugins, oracle.bpm.mapper, oracle.bpm.rules, oracle.bpm.workflow

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:56 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.internal.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.bpm.rules, oracle.bpm.workflow

With this error messages the bpm.modeler does not work...
Does anybody know, how to get around this problem? (On Windows there are no problems -> BPM-modellers do not use Linux?!)

Oracle BPM Suite: Overview

In my last posting i provided some links to the documentation. After reading some pages, i will try to give a summary.

In Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management i found the folling picture:

Here some explanations to these boxes:

• BPM Studio = Jdeveloper 11g with BPM installed
• Business Process Composer = a web-based application that enables business
  users to collaborate with process developers and designers
• BAM = a complete solution for building interactive, real-time dashboards and proactive alerts for
  monitoring business processes and services

But how do this components fit into Oracle Fusion? Take a look at this picture:

Here you can see, that the BPMN and BPEL Service Engines share the same process core.

The Oracle BPM Engine provides a run-time environment for running business processes. It provides native support for both BPMN and BPEL processes. 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

Ok. But why are there two ways for creating business processes? And hwo do they interact with each other?
Here two pictures with typical worksteps:

With knowing all this we are able to start our first project. Finally a screenshot of the business process composer:

Oracle BPM Suite: Documentation

After getting the BPM Suite ready (Installing BPM components into jdeveloper), here a collections of links to quick-starts, tutorials and the original documentation:

• Oracle BPM and Oracle Service Bus Integration:
  About the global picture...
  
• BPM 11g: For Oracle, It's All About Integration:
  Summarizing the steps to Oracle's BPM...
  
• The official documentation library (11g Release 1)
  and inside this documentation you can find the following Guides:
  
• Modelling and Implementation Guide
  This guide contains 447 pages and is for the following audience:
  

  This guide is intended for process developers who use the Business Process Studio application to create and implement business processes, and create and configure Oracle BPM projects used to created process-based applications using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite.

• Administrator's Guide
  Targeted audience (618 pages):
  

  This document is intended for administrators managing applications on an SOA platform.
  

• User's Guide
  With only 150 pages for:
  

  This document is intended for all users of both Oracle Business Process Management Workspace and Oracle Business Process Management Process Spaces.
  

• User's Guide for Oracle Business Composer
  135 pages with the following intended audience:
  

  This guide is intended for process analysts who use the Business Process Composer application to create and edit the business processes and Oracle BPM projects used to created process-based applications using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
  This guide is also intended for process developers who must use Business Process Composer. See Section 1.2, "Oracle BPM User Personas" for more information on these user personas.
  This manual assumes that you have basic knowledge of business process design and are familiar with Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) 2.0.
  

• Samples and Demos
  

Enjoy and Happy Reading!

Oracle BPM 11g: Missing BPM Studio Components in Jdeveloper 11g

Oracle announced Business Process Management Suite 11g on June 14th 2010:

• A component of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g is the industry’s most complete, open and integrated Business Process Management (BPM) solution.

• Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g supports all types of processes with a new unified process foundation, user-centric design and social BPM capabilities.

• Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g includes a native implementation of BPMN 2.0.

So let's take a look at BPM homepage. There you can find a link "getting started". But on the "getting started" page there is a link "Get started with BPM Suite 10g".
Ok - you want 11g you should start with 10g and no quick link how to start the studio...

Next try: Start with the BPM download page. This sounds better:

• JDeveloper: Download JDeveloper 11.1.1.3.0 (BPM Studio) from the FMW download page. Look for JDeveloper and Application Development Framework in the Required Addition Software section.

• SOA and BPM Extension for JDeveloper: Install the SOA and BPM Extension using the JDeveloper Update Center. From the JDeveloper menu choose Help > Check for Updates. In the Update Wizard, select Search Update Centers and ensure Oracle Fusion Middleware Products is checked ( screenshot). Then ensure that Oracle SOA Composite Editor is checked ( screenshot, your version may not match the screenshot exactly). The SOA and BPM Extension is approximately 200 MB each.

But the screenshots are a redirects to the BPM Homepage....

To save your time, here a quick start, how to get the BPM Studio.

First download JDeveloper 11g (11.1.1.3.0), unzip it and run jdeveloper:

Then open "Check for Updates" inside the "help" menu.

After that follow the Update Wizard like shown in the next pictures:

At this step you have to provide your Oracle account credentials.

Finished!!!

Now you can choose "New Appliation"

and here we go:

That's all...