IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Developing business processes > Building human tasks

Set up a user interface for your human task

The human task editor provides various client types that you can use to customize a user interface through which users can interact with the tasks in the runtime environment.

A client delivers task-related information to a staff member in the form of an interactive application. You can generate various types of clients for your human tasks, and use the generated clients to customize a user interface through which users can interact with the tasks in the runtime environment. Or, you can use generated clients to quickly demonstrate a human workflow, for example, as a proof of concept or prototype.

Using the client generator, you can generate clients for both stand-alone human tasks that exist independently of a BPEL process, and inline human tasks that have access to the execution context a BPEL process. You can create one client for all the human tasks in a module, or generate one client per task. You can also generate one client for all human tasks in multiple processes or modules.

You might want to provide a choice of user interfaces, clients with different functionality for different roles, or basic clients that can be reused by changing their appearance.

User interfaces for your human tasks can make use of several types of technology. The human task editor provides a User Interface section to add technology-specific configuration settings to a human task. For some of the client technology types included by default, the corresponding property page allows the creation or selection of visualization files that match the Business Object data structure used by the human task.

There are two routes to creating user interfaces for your human tasks. A human task user interface wizard can be used by selecting one or more human tasks in the Business Integration folder view. The wizard allows you to rapidly generate various user interfaces. The second route is to use the human task editor. There is a section on the canvas called User Interface and you can add user interface settings to your task using the "+" button. Some of the property pages where you specify the UI settings offer the possibility to create visualization artifacts for the selected interface technology. Most situations can be arrived at using either of these two methods but there are some considerations you should make before taking either route:

• If you want to create user interfaces for more than one task, the wizard is the more efficient choice, since you can create user interfaces for multiple tasks, even if they are not in the same module.

• If you want to create an IBM Form to directly interface with this task in this module, for example to use the form in the Task Information widget in a Process Portal space, use the human task editor. For IBM Forms and JSF, the wizard creates not only the generated artifacts but also stand-alone web applications to use the generated artifacts.

• If you want to work in a Process Portal space but do not have access to IBM Forms, you can create an HTML-Dojo user interface and use it in the Task Information widget.

• If you want to use an existing IBM Form for your user interface use the human task editor and select the IBM Form in the Properties view.

  The structure of the IBM Form must match the business object structure of the interface used by the human task. The simplest way to ensure this, is to create the human task using the existing IBM Form as a template. To do this, select File > New > Business Object from IBM Forms to launch the Generate a new BPEL process from IBM Forms wizard. Using this wizard create a BPEL process to contain the generated human tasks, create the human tasks and select the IBM Forms, the structure of which will be used to generate the interface used by the human task.

• Before you begin: Client types and prerequisites
  When you create a human task, you need to define, configure, or generate a client type. Each of these client types has its own prerequisites.
• Defining user interfaces for a human task
  In the Human Task editor, you can select the type of client, and configure properties such as inputs and outputs for the client.

  You can specify existing configurations, or define new ones. You can then generate a client.

• Generate HTML-Dojo pages or IBM Forms for Process Portal spaces
  

  You can get your human tasks to work in widgets in Process Portal spaces, by generating an HTML-Dojo page or an IBM Forms interface.

• Integrating JavaScript in HTML-Dojo pages
  

  You can integrate JavaScript functions to customize an HTML-Dojo page. An HTML-Dojo page is an HTML form that uses Dojo widgets.

• Generate IBM Forms clients (deprecated)
  Generate a client for your human task or process based on forms that you specify in the User interface settings.
• Generate WebSphere Portal portlets
  A portlet is a reusable web module that runs on a portal server. In the human task editor, you can specify a portlet as a client.
• Generate JSF clients for your human tasks
  

  You can generate a client either from a module, a business process, or a human task.

• Prepare to extend generated JSF code
  Before you can extend generated JSF code for a client, you must update the faces-config.xml file of the client to be enhanced to add support for the new human task.
• Customize clients
  

  You may need to customize the user interfaces to your human tasks. Information is provided for each type of human task client.

• Design considerations for user interface generation
  In IBM Integration Designer, the tools and technologies used to generate user interfaces are continually changing and evolving. This topic presents some design points that you should consider when you are designing a user interface and choosing the client type that is best suited for your purposes.
• Deploying a generated client to an external runtime environment
  After generating your client you have several choices for how to deploy it to the runtime environment.

Example

You want to use the IBM Forms technology to visualize a human task, you have several routes to achieving this goal. One option is to specify or generate an IBM Form on the IBM Forms User Interface Settings property page in the human task editor. You can then use the form in the Task Information widget to work with the task. Another option is to use the UI generation wizard to create a stand-alone web application. The wizard checks, if an IBM Form was specified on the corresponding property page. If a form is already configured, the wizard makes the generated application use it, otherwise it creates a form.

Building human tasks