OSWorkflow: A guide for Java developers and architects to integrating open-source Business Process Management: Get your workflow up and running with this ... OSWorkflow project with real-world examples

✍ Scribed by Diego Adrian Naya Lazo

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 209
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

I've been playing around with open source workflow engines for quite some time, Enhydra Shark, JBoss jBPM, etc. At each attempt I feel like I'm playing with a black box, guessing at it's internal behavior, not understanding the results. I hadn't really considered OSWorkflow because it didn't have the 'press' of the other packages. Then I bought this book and found out how much fun one can really have with a workflow engine. All of the components are pluggable, as this book points out, repeatedly. If you don't like the behavior of a component, change it -- and here's how. Need a different persistent store, change it, customize it. This is truly a programmer's workflow engine and this book will appeal to programmers.

This book also shows how, with examples, how to integrate JBoss Rules (aka DROOLS), Quartz scheduling, and Esper complex event processing.

The only downside which I found was not with the book, but with the OSWorkflow distribution, the Hibernate support is old, v2.8.0. At first I was disappointed but with the help of this book, I just wrote my own Hibernate 3.x support in a matter of a few hours and I now know the package much more intimately as result. I went on to customize and optimize this for my project.

OSWorkflow is a great workflow engine, let's hope this book give the kick-start which it needs to be even better.

✦ Table of Contents

OSWorkflow......Page 1
Table of Contents......Page 8
Introduction......Page 12
Business Process Orientation......Page 16
BPR and BPM......Page 17
Business Process Improvement......Page 18
What's a BPMS?......Page 19
Traceability and Auditing......Page 21
Different Kinds of BPMS......Page 22
System Orchestration with System-Oriented BPMS......Page 23
System Orchestration......Page 24
Enabling Workgroup Collaboration with People-Oriented BPMS......Page 26
Components of a BPM Solution......Page 27
The Workflow Management Coalition......Page 28
How Components Map to the BPM Lifecycle......Page 30
Summary......Page 31
Downloading and Installing OSWorkflow......Page 32
Navigating the Sample User Interface......Page 33
XML Definition Files......Page 38
An Example Workflow......Page 39
Steps, Actions, and Results: The Workflow Building Blocks......Page 40
Testing the Workflow Definition......Page 44
Splits and Joins......Page 45
Setting Status and Old Status Values......Page 48
Sending an Email Automatically......Page 49
Visually Creating the Holiday Example......Page 54
Looking at the End Result......Page 58
OSWorkflow as a Centralized Workflow Server......Page 59
Adding the SOAP Bindings......Page 60
Summary......Page 61
How to Deal with Transient Data......Page 62
Variable Interpolation in the Definition......Page 63
Exploring PropertySet......Page 64
Using the PropertySet to Retrieve Stored Data......Page 65
Configuring the PropertySet......Page 66
Creating our first FunctionProvider......Page 67
Defining a Custom Function Provider......Page 69
Built-in Functions......Page 71
Conditions......Page 72
Creating our own Condition......Page 73
Using the LogRegister......Page 75
Validators......Page 76
BeanShell Validators......Page 77
Finish Actions......Page 78
Summary......Page 79
Registering our Process Descriptors......Page 80
Starting a Workflow......Page 82
What's the Status?......Page 83
The Useful Abstract States......Page 84
Querying the Workflow Store......Page 85
Querying the Workflow Factory......Page 86
Using the Workflow Configuration Object......Page 87
Loading the Descriptors—the Workflow Factory......Page 88
Loading Descriptors from a Database......Page 89
Persistence Choices......Page 90
Configuring the JDBC Store......Page 91
Configuring the JDBC PropertySet......Page 92
What is JUnit?......Page 93
Integrating with Spring......Page 96
The Object Registry—BeanFactory......Page 97
Using our BeanFactory......Page 100
Transaction Support in Spring......Page 101
The SpringTypeResolver......Page 103
Step Permissions......Page 104
Action Restrictions......Page 105
Extending User and Group Authentication and Authorization......Page 106
Summary......Page 108
Incorporating Business Logic into Business Processes......Page 110
Simple Logic with Conditional Results......Page 111
What is "JBoss Rules"?......Page 115
Creating a Rule......Page 116
Executing a Rule......Page 117
RulesCondition......Page 118
RulesFunctionProvider......Page 123
Summary......Page 124
Basic Concepts......Page 126
Trigger Functions......Page 127
SimpleTrigger......Page 128
Scheduling a Job......Page 129
Scheduling from a Workflow Definition......Page 131
Transactions in Quartz......Page 133
JobStores......Page 134
Example Application—Customer Support......Page 135
Example Application—Claims Processing......Page 140
Summary......Page 145
Patterns and Data......Page 146
CEP in BPM......Page 147
The Esper Architecture......Page 148
Hello World from Esper......Page 149
Push and Pull Mode......Page 153
EQL Queries......Page 155
Esper Function Provider......Page 160
Real-World Examples......Page 162
Summary......Page 172
What is Pentaho?......Page 174
Downloading and Installing Pentaho......Page 175
Setting up Pentaho to use the OSWorkflow Database......Page 182
Using the Design Studio to Create our First Chart......Page 183
Useful Charts for BAM Consoles......Page 203
Summary......Page 205
Index......Page 206