Scenario: Developing a new process with an Advanced Integration Service

In this scenario, a business analyst creates a new process in Process Designer and defines an Advanced Integration Service that the process will use. An integration developer creates the service in Integration Designer and publishes it so the business analyst can use it to complete the process.

This scenario describes in general terms the tasks required to create the Advanced Hiring sample. You can access the sample from the Getting Started panel in IBM BPM Advanced. See Instructions for running the Advanced Hiring sample for information about administering and running the sample.

The work described here uses two different authoring environments, each optimized to contribute its part of the total process. The configuration being used is shown in the figure below, which references the Advanced Hiring sample to illustrate the contributions of the two authoring environments. The business analyst and the integration developer both contribute their work to the Process Center repository.

The Process Center repository contains all the BPM assets. The high-level assets are process applications, toolkits, tracks, and snapshots. Both the business analyst and the integration developer contribute to the same process applications and toolkits. Process Designer contributes business processes and data types. Integration Designer contributes modules, libraries, and BPEL business logic.

The Process Center Console provides a central user interface where you can manage multiple process development efforts across the entire process lifecycle. From the Process Center Console, you can create process applications and toolkits, and you can grant other users access to those process applications and toolkits. In the Process Designer, you can create process models, services, and other assets within process applications.

• Process applications are top-level containers of artifacts.

• A toolkit provides a way to share a collection of assets across applications.
• Tracks are optional subdivisions in a process application based on team tasks or process application versions. Tracks allow parallel development to occur. Administrators determine if tracks are necessary for each process application.

• A snapshot captures the state of the items within a process application at a specific point in time. Any author with write access to a process application can create a snapshot. Administrators can deploy a snapshot to a runtime server.

Related concepts:
Instructions for running the Advanced Hiring sample

Create a process application

This task is likely to be done by a business analyst or a developer with good knowledge of the business.

Procedure

Follow these steps to create a process that will use an external service.

1. Plan your project. It will help if you understand the relationship between the authoring environments and the Process Center.

2. Start IBM Process Designer.
3. Connect to the Process Center and log in.

4. In the Process Center Console, create a new process application that will contain the process model and underlying implementations.
5. Add dependencies to any toolkits that you or other developers need. A toolkit provides a way to share a collection of assets across applications.
6. Create a business process definition for a new process.
   In this scenario, one step in the new process requires a service that does not yet exist.

   For example, you might want a service that would allow your process to extract customer information from an SAP database. The integration development team will implement this service in a subsequent task.

7. Create an Advanced Integration Service and give it a name. Assign the input and output business objects for the service.
8. Save your work to the Process Center.
9. Test your process using playback with emulation.

What to do next

Notify an integration developer that there is a process application or toolkit in the Process Center repository that requires an implementation. The notification should include the name of the process application, the branch, the service name, and what the service needs to do.

Implementing an Advanced Integration Service

This task is likely to be done by an integration developer.

Some advanced functions, such as connecting to a SAP system, need adapters and additional programming that are added in the Integration Designer environment.

Procedure

Follow these steps to create the shell that will provide the ultimate implementation.

1. In the Integration Designer, open the Process Center perspective and connect to the server.
2. Open the process application in the Integration Designer workspace. Advanced Integration Services that have not yet been implemented are marked with the phrase "no implementation".

3. Use the service implementation wizard to create an implementation. You still need to develop the particular implementation that you are using; only a shell has been created so far. The information center provides instructions for creating several types of implementations. The implementation can be long running or a microflow, Java component, or empty implementation. When you choose an implementation, an SCA (service component architecture) export will be created for the service. See Exports and Create exports for more information about these artifacts.
4. Save your work. Once you use Refresh and Publish on the process application or toolkit, the Advanced Integration Service will be available in the Process Center and can be used in the Process Designer business process.
5. Test the Advanced Integration Service.
   

Use an Advanced Integration Service in a process application in Process Designer

After the service has been delivered to the Process Center, it is available for use in the process application. This task can again be done by a business analyst.

Procedure

Follow these steps to add the service to the process that was created earlier.

1. In Process Designer, locate the service in your process application and drag it to the business process diagram.
2. Map the service inputs and outputs to the business process definition process variables.
   

3. Click the Run icon (

   ) to test the process.