WebSphere Lombardi Edition 7.2 > Release notes


What's new in Teamworks 7.0.0

This release of Teamworks 7 introduces the following new features and major enhancements. For information about existing features that have changed with this release, see What's changed in Teamworks 7.0.0.


Introducing Teamworks 7

Teamworks 7 includes several new features and product components designed to revolutionize the way you implement and deploy your business processes. Teamworks 7 provides a new paradigm for version management, enabling large and diverse organizations to easily organize, share, and reuse process assets. With Teamworks 7, you can easily manage design-time process assets from development teams in various geographic locations and then deploy your production processes to multiple execution environments. Once in production, your processes will continue to evolve due to changing needs. Teamworks 7 is designed to help you rapidly deploy and update your processes in response to the changes in your business. Working together, the new features in Teamworks 7 provide the following capabilities:


Teamworks Process Center

This release of Teamworks includes a new Process Center, which enables you to build, store, and share your processes and supporting assets from a single repository. From Teamworks Authoring Environment, multiple users can connect to the Process Center and then access the projects in which they want to create or modify their business processes and the assets used to implement those processes. You can work simultaneously with other users and see all updates as they are saved. The Process Center also enables you to capture and timestamp your progress in snapshots. With snapshots, you can open previous versions of projects to see the changes that have been made over time, and you can run processes and all other assets from previous versions to gain a more detailed understanding of previous versus current implementations.

For more information, see Plan Teamworks projects > Understand process development in Teamworks in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Teamworks Process Center Console

The Teamworks Process Center Console is a user interface that provides the tools you need to create and manage the projects and other assets stored in the Teamworks repository. You can use the Process Center Console to create projects in the Teamworks repository and manage user access to those projects. You can also create and manage snapshots of all projects from the Process Center Console. The Process Center Console enables you to easily support the entire lifecycle of your projects, including installation of project snapshots on Process Servers in test and production environments. And, once your processes are up and running, you can manage those running instances from the Process Center Console.

For more information, see Manage the Process Center repository > Overview in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Teamworks process applications and toolkits

When you're developing processes in Teamworks, there's a hierarchy available in the repository which is designed to help you manage your projects. All projects in the Teamworks repository are either process applications or toolkits. Process applications are containers for the process models and supporting implementations that BPM analysts and developers create in Teamworks Authoring Environment. Toolkits are a collection of assets that can be shared across numerous projects. You can create workspaces in both process applications and toolkits. Workspaces are optional subdivisions based on team tasks or project versions. When enabled, workspaces allow parallel development to occur in a single project. For example, workspaces enable one team to fix the current version of a process while another team builds a completely new version based on new external systems and a new corporate identity.

When working in Teamworks Authoring Environment, you can pick the toolkits that you want for each process application. Adding toolkits to your process application enables you to re-use the items within each toolkit. When toolkit items are updated, those users with toolkit dependencies are notified of the updates and can choose to either accept the new version or continue using the current version. Team members with the required permissions can create new toolkits as projects grow and additional items for re-use are identified.

For more information, see Plan Teamworks projects > Understand process development in Teamworks in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Versioning capabilities

This release of Teamworks enables you to version your projects and the assets within them using snapshots. You can create snapshots in the Process Center Console and in the Designer in Teamworks Authoring Environment. Snapshots enable you to easily view all assets within your project as they existed at the time the snapshot was created. While viewing previous snapshots of your project assets, you can also run processes or services to compare previous implementations to your current status. Snapshots ensure that you can run any version of any asset at any time. Plus, you can choose to copy an older version of an asset to your current project or you can simply revert to an older version of a particular asset if the previous implementation matches your current needs. Snapshots provide the flexibility that you need to fully understand and compare your project's implementations as they evolve. Snapshots also enable you to locate and re-use valuable assets from the past when necessary.

Use snapshots, you can easily install new versions of your projects as they are updated to meet changing business needs. And, you can install different versions of the same project in various environments within your organization, which enables you to upgrade and deploy your business processes as the requirements throughout various business units dictate. For more information, see Running and installing processes > Releasing and installing processes in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Enhanced library in Teamworks Authoring Environment

Interacting with the library while working in Teamworks Authoring Environment is much easier due to the following enhancements:

Collaborative editing Teamworks enables multiple users to simultaneously access library items in the Designer view. With collaborative editing, all users who are accessing an item at the same time can see changes as they are saved. The Designer view displays notifications to ensure that all users are aware of the library items that are open and the changes being made.
Favorites You can mark library items as favorites for quick and easy access. Each library item that you mark as a favorite is added to a pre-existing Favorites folder.
Tags By default you can sort library items by name or by type. To sort library items using your own labels, you can attach a tag for quick and easy access.
Smart folders Teamworks Designer includes several default smart folders such as the Changed Today folder, which includes all library items in the current project that were changed on the current day. Default smart folders include library items changed by all users who have access to the current project. In addition to the default smart folders, you can create custom smart folders that include library items based on rules that you establish. You can include library items based on the presence of a particular tag, their creation date, item type, and so on. Custom smart folders can be private or shared.
View and running previous snapshots Use a snapshot entry in the Revision History, you can view the state of all library items within a project as they existed when a particular snapshot was created. Plus, you can run processes and services from previous snapshots to fully understand and analyze previous implementations.
Reverting to previous versions of library items In the library in the Designer view, you can revert to a previous version of a library item. For example, if you realize that a service you created in a previous snapshot is closer to the implementation that you need than the current version, you can revert to the previous version of the service.
Copying and moving library items You can copy or move specific library items from one project to another. When you move library items from a process application to a toolkit, references are created from the source process application to the target toolkit when the move is complete. For example, if you move a service (that is the implementation for a particular step in a process) from a process application to a toolkit, the implementation is automatically updated to call the service from its toolkit location.
Manage files Images, style sheets, JAR files, and other assets are often part of a Teamworks implementation, but developed outside of Teamworks. In Teamworks 7, you can add these external files to your process application or toolkit in the Designer view so that all project assets are included in the Teamworks repository. Doing so ensures that all required files are available and installed when a project is ready for testing or production.

For more information, see Manage the Process Center repository > Manage library items in the Designer view in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Enhanced process installation and migration

Start with Teamworks 7, you can install process applications on Teamworks Process Servers in your test, production, and other environments using the Process Center Console. When installing a process application, you can select the snapshot version that you want to install. When Teamworks performs an installation, it moves all components of a snapshot version, including all library items and toolkit dependencies, from the Process Center repository to the Process Server that you choose. After the application is installed, you can configure the run-time settings for the exposed processes and services using the Process Admin Console. For example, you can add members to the participant groups who were given access to a process during development. This may be necessary because users that exist in the test or production environment may not have been available in the development environment.

During process application installation, if Teamworks detects running instances of the processes that you are installing, it enables you to choose whether to leave the running instances as is or migrate those instances to the new snapshot version. For non-production servers, you have the additional option of deleting running instances. Teamworks also automatically includes an installation service in each process application that you create. You can add components to this installation service to handle any advanced requirements in your target environment such as creating or updating database tables, determining which snapshots are already installed, and migrating individual process instances. For more information, see Running and installing processes > Releasing and installing processes in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Enhanced testing using the Inspector in Teamworks Authoring Environment

The Inspector in Teamworks Authoring Environment has been enhanced to enable you to choose the runtime environment in which to run and test your processes. For example, when working in Teamworks Authoring Environment while developing a process, you can choose to run that process on the Process Server in your test environment. Testing the process in a different runtime environment can reveal issues that will help you anticipate how to effectively build the process and then also configure the process when it is ready for installation in a production environment. The improved Inspector also enables you to choose the version of the process that you want to run so that you can compare the results and make decisions about implementation options for activities and other similar considerations.

For more information, see Running and installing processes > Running and debugging processes with the Inspector in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


Enhanced simulation and historical analysis using the Optimizer in Teamworks Authoring Environment

The Optimizer in Teamworks Authoring Environment has been enhanced to enable you to analyze different versions of processes as well as processes from different process applications. For example, you can compare the current version of a process to an older version from a different snapshot. Plus, when you're viewing a heat map of an older version of a process, the heat map includes any activities or other elements that may have been changed or removed in the current version.


Environment variables

Each project that you create in Teamworks includes environment variables, which you can set and implement throughout your project. Environment variables enable you to specify a key identifier, a default value, and then a specific value for each of your configured environments. You can use these environment variables in your implementations (such as services) throughout an entire project. Taking advantage of environment variables ensures that your process implementations are utilizing correct values no matter which environment you deploy to or how much your environment changes at run-time. For example, suppose your process includes an implementation that requires the port number for an external application. By using an environment variable, you can set the port number for each environment in which the process will run. Plus, administrators can verify and adjust environment variable values from the Process Admin Console after a process is installed. For more information, see Modeling processes > Basic modeling tasks > Set environment variables in Teamworks Authoring Environment Help.


New platform support

Teamworks 7 includes an embedded application server and adds support for the following platforms:

For more information about supported platforms, see Teamworks Installation and Configuration Guide.

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