The 'correct' way to join application data to a workflow ins

[nathancoast]

My app has a persistent business object model. I also have a persistent jbpm workflow which describes the status of an entities in my biz model.

I need to select entities based on their workflow state and their data. E.g. A global document system where documents are approved by regional editors. I need to select all documents in the state "awaiting approval" where the document region is EU.

I'm not sure of the correct approach to model this:

1) place the relevant document attributes (doc_id, region) as variables within the workflow. Search for approval workflow tasks with matching process vars - region = 'EU'. Necessitates duplication of vars between biz entity and process vars.

2) add an attribute to the doc entity (process_id). Search for approval workflow tasks, joined to biz model where doc.region = 'EU' and doc.process_id = foo.

3) place the doc_id as a variable in the workflow and query both process and biz database joined by doc_id and were doc.region = 'EU'

Is there a "correct" way to achieve this?

Thanks in advance,
Nathan

[kukeltje]

jbpm has the notion of a businesskey, which corresponds to option 3. That is also what we use internally

[twiceknightly]

"kukeltje" wrote:
jbpm has the notion of a businesskey

Can you expand on that?

[kukeltje]

http://docs.jboss.com/jbpm/v3.2/javadoc-jpdl/org/jbpm/graph/exe/ProcessInstance.html#setKey(java.lang.String)

or use the contstructor of ProcessInstance

with http://docs.jboss.com/jbpm/v3.2/javadoc-jpdl/org/jbpm/JbpmContext.html#loadProcessInstance(org.jbpm.graph.def.ProcessDefinition,%20java.lang.String) you can retrieve instances based on the businesskey.

For a discussion on the businesskey see: http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=100895

I did not find anything in the docs for it, so that needs to be added.

From seam:
http://docs.jboss.com/seam/2.0.1.GA/api/org/jboss/seam/bpm/BusinessProcess.html

[twiceknightly]

That's a fantasic answer and a lot of help, cheers kukeltje

"kukeltje" wrote:
http://docs.jboss.com/jbpm/v3.2/javadoc-jpdl/org/jbpm/graph/exe/ProcessInstance.html#setKey(java.lang.String)

or use the contstructor of ProcessInstance

with http://docs.jboss.com/jbpm/v3.2/javadoc-jpdl/org/jbpm/JbpmContext.html#loadProcessInstance(org.jbpm.graph.def.ProcessDefinition,%20java.lang.String) you can retrieve instances based on the businesskey.

For a discussion on the businesskey see: http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=100895

I did not find anything in the docs for it, so that needs to be added.

From seam:
http://docs.jboss.com/seam/2.0.1.GA/api/org/jboss/seam/bpm/BusinessProcess.html