11 Replies Latest reply on Feb 10, 2011 2:39 PM by cs1

    Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application

    cs1

      Hi,

       

      I'm in the process of orienting myself in the BPM world for the fist time, and have a limited understanding of the implementation details.

       

      I'm looking for an application to present task forms to end users, give them a place to manage their task queues, as well as start new tasks; it looks like the jBPM console can do this, but I'm not entirely sure if it's more for developer testing or if it's something intended for an end user (in a medium sized company). Looking at the jBPM5 manual, the discussion on form generation is fairly light and the input validation seems to be minimal. So is the idea here that you would write a more full featured task form using the included form framework? Or is the console more intended as a back end interface that provides some basic task managment and servers as a sample application, and you would normally just write your own application front end?

       

      Any information appreciated, sorry if my question is a bit vague...

       

      Thanks.

        • 1. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
          salaboy21

          Hi there,

          Your question it's pretty common. In my experience you usually end up writing your own interface for your own domain using a technology that your company feels confortable with. For demo usage, or for showing the capabilities of the BPM System you can use the current console. The community tryies to improve the current console, but it's a lot of work.

          We surely can create a wiki page to have a rank with a set of the most important features that users consider at the moment of choosing a tools for end users.

          What do you think about that? Then based on that rank we can create Jira (Project) Issues or feature request so the community knows what's important.

           

          Cheers

          • 2. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
            cs2

            (I'm the orig author, I wasn't able to reset my password, the website said I had to wait 24hrs for my next password reset)

             

            That would be great to add more features, but I'm just wondering if that would be out side of the scope of the jBPM project? In my case ideally the console would be a fully developed application that could be customized, but not require significant amounts of developer time.

             

            Thx!

            • 3. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
              bpmn2user

              Did you try the current console and look at the existing features?

              You can create the forms for human tasks using Freemarker(http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/) templates. Freemarker is a template engine to generate HTML pages.

              The console (based on https://github.com/heiko-braun/bpm-console/raw/master/doc/Reference.pdf) provides the framework using GWT and REST. This framework gives you the integration with jBPM runtime engine. Having said that, you would need to extend it based on your needs, such providing access to your data model and integarting with any of your custom workitem enhancements.

              • 4. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                cs2

                Yes, I have the jbpm-console demo running and have been able to look at it. The main thing I'm not seeing is how to validate user input on forms (e.g. I need to validate that a user picked a unique login name in a back end database) and how to create and deploy forms in a process. This is due to my lack of understanding of how everything fits together at a rudimentary level -- I'm new to Java. For example, I'm not seeing where the form source is located in the "Evaluation" example in the Eclipse project, or when a user enters some data, where I write the code to validate it and return an error if needed?

                 

                Any addtional suggestsions on what to read up on in order to get an inital "hello world" grasp would be great. I'll take a look at the GWT manual as recommended by the bpm-console reference, thank you for that!

                • 5. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                  bpmn2user

                  The form source files for "Evaluation" example, i.e, the templates, are included in the  jar file jbpm-gwt-form-5.0.0.jar. Alternatively, you can also deploy them in Guvnor. I will try to post sample code and the steps involved.

                  • 6. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                    dekadence

                    Have a look at the screencast from Kris V. on this topic. He shows a simple example of how to upload process definition and user task form templates to guvnor.

                    http://people.redhat.com/kverlaen/jBPM5-guvnor-integration.swf In order for this to work with the JBPM-console, the process has to declare package: defaultPackage.

                    • 7. Re: Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                      cs2

                      Thanks for the screen cast! That makes sense.

                       

                      Little feedback from a newbie: one of the things that I've been finding tricky is understanding what the intended way to do things is; for example, I could unzip all the .jars and look for the "Evaluation" example form, but I didn't think that that was the intended workflow, and the screen cast clarified that for me. I realize of course this is just one scenario and it also may be vague since jBPM is often embedded, but it helped me understand the out of the box context.

                       

                      Hopefully it's not a faux pas to mention another BPM project, but I found this diagram helpful in conveying what the intention was behind all of the components of the Activiti project... but it took a lot of digging to find it:

                       

                      http://docs.codehaus.org/display/ACT/Process+authoring+story+boards#Processauthoringstoryboards-DefaultBPMDevApproach

                      • 8. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                        echelon

                        Hi Matus!

                        Thank you for sharing the screencast!

                        I define a process according to the screencast,but i got a prompt( "No diagram associated with process" )when i  click "Diagram" in jbpm5.

                        Could you tell me which config missing?

                        • 9. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                          dekadence

                          Hi, did you add the ProcessID-image.png file to the Guvnor defaultPackage? (replace ,,ProcessId" with the actual id of your process, e.g. com.sample.evaluation-image.png). Than rebuild the package in guvnor and you should see the diagram of the process ni the jbpm console.

                          • 10. Advice on using the jBPM console as an end user application
                            echelon

                            Thanks Matus! It's ok now.

                            I hadn't set the package name of ProcessID-image.png.