JBPM basic questions

[careerscale]

Hi All,

I spent couple of days reading literature and installing jbpm, creating simple process etc but couldn't feel confident about it. I did work with JBPM few years back for simpler orchestration purpose.

Though I spent time on latest version, I couldn't get confidence on it over all.

I have few questions, sorry if they look dumb.

1. Cann't we have simpler approach? (As I understand I can just define a process with eclipse plugin or web designer and use the xml file in my application and have dependencies injected with maven or so),  Do we really need to get the drools-guvnor, jboss etc for working with jbpm?I just want to have a process (might be complex) with persistence enabled and use it within my application, should we need app server?

if not, the literature seems to be bit complex with lot of information about tools and it is easy for me to get lost on getting my basics right.

2. Can you guide me to some place to have a smoother start, is the user guide the best place to start with?  (I hope so). If there are any maven archetypes or something of that sort to get started, I would like to go with one. I do see lot of examples and projects but I really want to start with my own project and use JBPM in it.

Thanks, Harinath

[salaboy21]

HI Hiranath,

You can take a look at this repository: https://github.com/droolsjbpm/jbpm-playground

for project examples. Now in version 6 we have introduced the concept of kjar which is a deployable unit, which means that you can deploy into a runtime environment to execute your business processes.

Of course that you can use a simple approach and embed jBPM as a framework in your application. Look at the *-test projects, they show how to instantiate the Process Engine using the Runtime Manager. Those tests cases are exactly the same as if you were creating a very simple app to run the processes.

HTH

[careerscale]

Thanks. sure I will check the examples.

Also I am following your book as well.

[salaboy21]

Great, some of the things had changed for the better, the introduction of the Runtime Manager will help you a lot to get you started.

Cheers

[careerscale]

yes, the new API looks better, older one is tricky manage the tasks through code, i couldn't get to do that with 5.x but with latest one it is lot easier.

thanks for pointing it out

[careerscale]

Also do you have any suggestions for me to deploy database (mysql) on my own and use the jbpm as part of my application on stand alone basis?

I tried executing the script files in  my local computer, here is how the location of these files look like

C:\Users\harinath\Documents\GitHub\jbpm\jbpm-installer\db\ddl-scripts\mysql5

is this correct one? I tried adding META-INF/persistence.xml and change the properties to reflect mysql.

but still I am getting errors like this

2013-11-22 12:51:52,540 [main] ERROR HHH000388: Unsuccessful: alter table Attachment add index FK_7ndpfa311i50bq7hy18q05va3 (attachedBy_id), add constraint FK_7ndpfa311i50bq7hy18q05va3 foreign key (attachedBy_id) references OrganizationalEntity (id)

2013-11-22 12:51:52,546 [main] ERROR Unknown data type: "FK_7NDPFA311I50BQ7HY18Q05VA3"; SQL statement:

alter table Attachment add index FK_7ndpfa311i50bq7hy18q05va3 (attachedBy_id), add constraint FK_7ndpfa311i50bq7hy18q05va3 foreign key (attachedBy_id) references OrganizationalEntity (id) [50004-168]

I am sure there must be some instructions somewhere which do not talk of jboss and jbpm-installer and may solve my problem.

can you provide me some pointer towards the same?