Several doubts about JBPM ....

[maykellff]

Hi, one of the promise of most of BPM tools and engines is allow flexibility when business changes come into play. Now, after i review and play with JBPM, my worry is about i don´t see how can i isolate the processes definition and execution from the web application itself because i see Java code inside my process definition for everywhere.

A simple case, after my application is in production, it is necessary to make a change in one of the processes it is holding;
Do i have to redeploy the application after the change?

another question: Can i make a deploy of one of my process even without make a deploy of the application that uses this process?

Can i deploy my process to a server for example jboss-jbpm-2.0-server and deploy the web application that uses it to another server for example jboss-4.2.x.GA ?

How can i take adventages from tools like Jbpm-console?

I hope you can help me with this,

Thanks in advance, Maykell.

[ligang1111]

You should know jbpm is a kind of embed workflow enginer ,it packages the logics of workflow and process,it can't know your application's logics.You said you saw Java code inside your process definitiion everywhere.Yes,it's.But it must be.Because workflow can only invoke external application's code,it is based on the conception of action in jbpm,so it's oriented developer ,not business analyst. all of what business analyst can see is the visual workflow diagram.How to collect their work?Event,you can incorperate them through it.
answer of Question One is following:
in this case,UI of your application may change some logics according to your changed processdefinition.

answer of Question Two is following:
You can do it.
answer of Question three is following:
please see Java EE Application Server Facilities in userguide doc.

You can take adventages from jbpm-console to monitor some information about your processInstance.

[oravecz]

A process workflow does not necessarily need access to your Java classes, such as domain classes or service classes. As the workflow proceeds however, it does need to interact with your code in order to be useful. If you are deploying workflow processes to a VM external to your application runtime, jBPM will need a way to communicate with your code.

Since you suggested a web application, the easiest way would be to make web service calls from your workflow to your application.

[maykellff]

Hi, thank you very much for your answer ligang1111 and oravecz, let me see if i understand well, i most take adventage from BPM in two diferents ways:

1: BPM inside of my project like a closed silo, in this case the interacions the processes need to do the job came from my java clases (domain clases for example)

2: BPM to coordinate, orchestrate or whatever several applicationes for one process or several processes, in this case there is not direct interaction with java clases like domain classes but all the interaction with the diferents applicationes involved is through web services. And this process most defined inside a new kind of project (a process project) not inside one of the applications involved.

Are these 2 points correct?


Can you suggest me some tutorial that explain in detail a case of bpm relating several applications? (using jbpm of course)


Thank you very much,
Maykell.

[kukeltje]

2: not specifically web services, but services in a more generic way.

Tutorial? If you search a little, or even look (wel currently, 17 oct 18:33 CET) at the last post on this first page, you'll see: http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=144094

oh... and you can do this if you do 1, not only with 2. jBPM is sooooo flexible