Integrating with BPEL Processes Using the SOA Composite

24-4 Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management Oracle SOA infrastructure provides access to re-usable services that you can use in your business processes. Guided Business Processes leverage existing services, processes and task flows to create long-running, multiuser processes. Guided Business Processes provide the following functions and features: ■ Re-using tasks and taskflows within a large composite, to avoid redesigning and re-coding tasks and activities. ■ Using SOA infrastructure to orchestrate tasks, creating a flow of business processes. ■ Using Milestones to modularize tasks into manageable chunks, while presenting to end users a set of related, guided tasks. For example, a long process with one hundred tasks can be broken down into ten or twenty Milestones. End users need only step through a few Milestones rather than, say, one hundred individual tasks. Guided Business Processes: Design Time and Run Time Guided Business Processes consist of both design time components and run time interfaces.

24.1.1 Guided Business Process Design Time Architecture

Guided Business Processes use Oracle Business Process Management to provide a comprehensive, standards-based, easy-to-use solution for creating, deploying, and managing composite application business processes with both automated and human workflow steps—all in a service-oriented architecture. Guided Business Processes leverage features of Oracle Fusion Middleware, such as security, scalability and high availability. The following features enable composite processes to be exposed as Guided Business Processes: ■ Technology abstraction . By using metadata, the actual implementation of business logic need not rely on any one technology. ■ Declarative development . Using metadata to define business logic and business processes eliminates the need for coding when creating a Guided Business Process. Developing Guided Business Processes involves creating a composite application which contains a SOA project with a BPM Project. The BPM process exposed as a Guided Business Process, consists of an Activity Guide that contains milestone activities. A separate client application must also be developed as an end user interface for the Guided Business Process. Working with Guided Business Processes 24-5 Figure 24–3 Guided Business Process Design Time Architecture You can develop a user interface for Guided Business Processes using any of the following: ■ Oracle ADF ■ Oracle WebCenter Framework ■ Guided Business Process Run-Time Services.

24.1.2 Components of a Guided Business Process

A Guided Business Process is a BPMN process that orchestrates a set of human tasks and provides a common user interface to complete and track these tasks. To define a Guided Business Process you create an Activity Guide that comprises the following components: ■ Milestone : A milestone is a group of human tasks which must be completed to accomplish a particular goal. A milestone is complete when its human tasks have been completed. Similarly, an Activity Guide is complete when a specific set of Milestones are completed. A milestone can contain Human Task activities and other BPMN activities. ■ Human Tasks : It is possible to invoke an ADF task flow from an Activity Guide. To do so, a Human Task component is placed in the Activity Guide and bound to an ADF task flow. ■ Other Tasks : Activity Guides can include other tasks such as service calls. However, these automated tasks do not appear in the Activity Guide tree at run time. Activity Guides with a simple, sequential process execution must complete all Milestones. Similarly, all Human Task components within a milestone must be completed to complete the milestone. Activity Guides containing branching and conditional logic may sometimes complete execution without necessarily completing all Milestones. Similarly, some Human Task components within these Milestones may be skipped as well.

24.1.3 Guided Business Process Run-Time Architecture

Guided Business Processes rely on Oracle Business Process Management to orchestrate tasks, combining Oracle Business Process Management, worklist applications, and human task flows to link disparate human tasks to a greater long-running process.