IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Programming IBM BPM > Developing client applications for BPEL processes and tasks

Developing EJB client applications for BPEL processes and human tasks

The EJB APIs provide a set of generic methods for developing EJB client applications for working with the BPEL processes and human tasks that are installed on a Process Server.

With these Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) APIs, you can create client applications to do the following:

• Manage the lifecycle of processes and tasks from starting them through to deleting them when they complete
• Repair activities and processes
• Manage and distribute the workload over members of a work group

The EJB APIs are provided as two stateless session enterprise beans:

• BusinessFlowManagerService interface provides the methods for BPEL process applications
• HumanTaskManagerService interface provides the methods for task-based applications

For more information on the EJB APIs, see the Javadoc in the com.ibm.bpe.api package and the com.ibm.task.api package.

The following steps provide an overview of the actions you need to take to develop an EJB client application.

Procedure

1. Decide on the functionality that the application is to provide.
2. Decide which of the session beans that you are going to use.

   Depending on the scenarios that you want to implement with your application, you can use one, or both, of the session beans.

3. Determine the authorization authorities needed by users of the application.

   The users of your application must be assigned the appropriate authorization roles to call the methods that you include in your application, and to view the objects and the attributes of these objects that these methods return. When an instance of the appropriate session bean is created, WebSphere Application Server associates a context with the instance. The context contains information about the caller's principal ID, group membership list, and roles. This information is used to check the caller's authorization for each call.

   The Javadoc contains authorization information for each of the methods.

4. Decide how to render the application.

   The EJB APIs can be called locally or remotely.

5. Develop the application.

   1. Access the EJB API.

   2. Use the EJB API to interact with processes or tasks.
      • Query the data.
      • Work with the data.

• Access the EJB APIs
  The Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) APIs are provided as two stateless session enterprise beans. BPEL process applications and task applications access the appropriate session enterprise bean through the home interface of the bean.
• Developing applications for BPEL processes
  A BPEL process is a set of business-related activities that are invoked in a specific sequence to achieve a business goal. Examples are provided that show how you might develop applications for typical actions on processes.
• Developing applications for human tasks
  A task is the means by which components invoke humans as services or by which humans invoke services. Examples of typical applications for human tasks are provided.
• Developing applications for BPEL processes and human tasks
  People are involved in most business process scenarios.

  For example, a business process requires people interaction when the process is started or administered, or when human task activities are performed. To support these scenarios, you need to use both the Business Flow Manager API and the Human Task Manager API.

• Handling exceptions and faults
  A BPEL process might encounter a fault at different points in the process.

Developing client applications for BPEL processes and tasks

Related concepts:
Alternative administration modes for BPEL processes
Authorization roles for BPEL processes
Authorization roles for human tasks

Related reference:
BusinessFlowManagerService interface
HumanTaskManagerService interface
Database views for Business Process Choreographer

Related information:
Deprecated features