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8-2 Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management Additionally, you can pass information between the different elements of a process using data associations. Data associations enable you to pass information map the values of project and process data objects to the input and output arguments of the flow object implementations. You can view the process data objects, project data objects, and business indicators in the Structure Window. Figure 8–1 Show the structure window for a process that defines business indicators and process data objects. Figure 8–1 Structure Window This figure shows the Structure window for a process that defines business indicators and process data objects.

8.1.1 Basic Data Objects versus Complex Data Objects

Basic data objects are data objects defined using the basic types. For example, Int, Bool or String. Complex data objects allow you to group data. Complex data objects are defined using business objects. See Chapter 13, Modeling Business Objects for more information on how to define business objects. Business objects allow you to create data structures based on basic data objects. For example, you can create a complex data object called employee that contains different data types for employee name, id, and salary. The structure of complex data objects is the same for all the process instances of a process. However the data they contain generally varies between the different instances of the process. Figure 8–2 shows the relationship between basic data objects and complex data objects. Handling Information in Your Process Design 8-3 Figure 8–2 Basic Data Objects versus Complex Data Objects This diagram shows examples of basic data objects defined using different basic types and examples of complex data objects defined using business objects.

8.2 Introduction to Data Objects

The main elements of a business process are tasks and information related to those tasks. The information of a process may change as you run the process. This information defines the state of a process at a given time. This information determines how the process behaves for a particular instance. According to the value of this information the instance may take one path or another. You may monitor this information or store it to an external system. The information of a process may change as the process runs. This information defines the state of a process at a given time. The Sales Quote example process uses the following information: ■ Approval flow ■ Approval terms outcome ■ Quote Oracle BPM uses data objects to store the information related to the process. The value of these variables may or may not change as you run the process. Oracle BPM data objects have the following characteristics: 8-4 Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management ■ A name that identifies the data object ■ A data type that determines the type of data that can be stored in the variable. Data objects store information related to each process instance you create. The value of these data objects is different for every instance in the process. However the structure of the data object is the same for all process instances. When you define a process you must define the data object to store information. You must also define in which part of the process you assign a value to these data objects. The value of data objects may come from the user input, from external systems or might be calculated based on other data objects. When you create an instance, the Process Engine assigns Null as the default value for all the data objects defined for that process. Later on the activities in the process assign values to these variables. In the purchase order process each order has its own total amount, payment type and customer ID. You can model this data by defining data objects that store this process information.

8.2.1 Supported Data Types for Data Objects

You can set the type of a data object to the following data types: ■ String ■ Int ■ Bool ■ Real ■ Decimal ■ Time ■ Interval ■ Binary ■ Component

8.2.2 Default Values

If you configure a data object to initialize automatically the BPMN Engine assigning it a default value. The default value varies according to the type of the data object. Table 8–1 shows the default values for the supported data types. Note: The binary data type is only used to map elements of an XML schema type. You cannot perform any operations with binary data types. You can only pass them between different components and flow objects. Table 8–1 Default Values Data Type Default Value String Time, Date ’now’ Int, Real, Decimal