Step by step installation guide

Step by step installation guide for IBM BPM 7.5.1

Video tutorial of MQ integration with IBM BPM v7.5

MQ Integration by Neil Kolban

IBM BPM V8 Demo Tour Webconf by BillHahn

IBM BPM V8 Demo Tour Webconf by BillHahn

Why BPM & SOA go together by Brian Petrini

Youube Video - IBM Software Services for WebSphere Integration Architect Brian Petrini talks with BPM Zone Editor Chris Rothemich about the difference between BPM and SOA and why they're best combined for a robust integration solution. He also talks about the difference between a business process and a service, and what scenarios lend themselves to using IBM BPM Advanced vs. IBM BPM Standard.

New features of IBM BPM v8

Process Portal Enhancements

The new V8.0 Process Portal has been enhanced to use Web 2.0 Technology which allows you to deliver a highly collaborative work experience. 

• The Process Portal has been now based on the Business Space.
• It allows you to collaborate with another user on the task by inviting that user.
• You can see the different tasks being worked upon in the Stream tab.
• You can collaborate with the expert to get his help in completing the task.
• You can now restrict the ad-hoc task in Portal
• There are three inline tasks available which can be completed in single action
• Simple Approval
• Simple Decision
• Simple Completion

  
Process Designer Features 
• New Coach Designer – It allows you to create and reuse custom user-defined Coach controls, sections and templates.
• Shared Business Objects – By default the Business Objects are private. With this release you can create the Shared Business Object. This will allow you to share the Business Object by Reference within same instance or different instances
• Enhanced Exceptions Handling – In this release there has been improvement in Exceptions Handling. So now you can handle the exception thrown by Advanced Integration Services (AIS) or any Integration Services or a General System Services
• Auto-flow to the Next Task – This feature allows you to move to the next task without claiming the next task if the tasks are configured for this functionality.
• Terminate End Event behavior enhancement – Terminate End Event now allows the control to just Terminate the existing Process and sub process or the complete process.
• Rich Text Formatting in Descriptions
• OSLC External Linking Support – It allows linking the Process Application with the RTC Work items or the Test cases
• Web Services Stack Upgrade – In this release the web services implementation is changed from Axis to JAX WS implementation in WAS.
 Enhanced Content Management Support
• It provides you the ability to interact with documents in enterprise content management systems via Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS)  API
• IBM BPM allows you to integrate with any CMIS compliant ECM systems.
Process Center Enhancements
• There is an ability to share the toolkits across different process centers
• New copy feature enables to copy selected artifacts from any snapshot in track to the tip of another track or main stream
• You can compare the content of different tracks and copy the content across them
 
Business Monitor Enhancements
• In Business Monitor, you can have dashboards generated automatically when you deploy a monitor model. This option is available at deploy time of a monitor model application. 

What's new in IBM BPM latest version 8?

New Process Portal

The new Process Portal available in IBM Business Process Manager V8 has been modernized to take advantage of the latest Web 2.0 technologies. It implements social BPM to enable real-time collaboration among users working on the same task, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Social BPM enables collaborative task completion
 

The Process Portal includes the following new features that enhance the user experience and productivity, as illustrated in Figure 2:

• The ability to add comments and attach documents to a specific process or task.
• One-click subscription to process instances a user is interested in, providing process-related on-screen notifications and activity updates in the subscribed user's activity stream.
• Activity streams that display activity updates, such as task creation and completion, user comments and actions, and notifications that are related to tasks that are owned by a user or related to particular process instances that a user is following.
• Enhanced user profile information, including avatars and configuration of notifications.

Figure 2. Working with tasks in the new Process Portal
 

New Process Designer features

Automatic starting of the next task

Sometimes your process involves a sequence of activities that should be performed by the same person, one right after the other. You can configure these individual activities to start automatically if they are assigned to the same person as the previous task. In Process Portal, if the owner of the current task is the same as the owner of the next task, the next task starts automatically when the current task is complete.

Restricting ad hoc actions by milestone or participant group

You can configure ad hoc actions, also called user-initiated actions, to be available for only a particular phase of a process or for a particular user group by restricting the visibility of the associated ad hoc event to a particular swimlane or milestone in the business process definition (BPD), as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Restricting ad hoc task availability
 

Configuring activities for inline completion

You can configure user tasks that involve a simple decision, such as to approve or reject a request or to choose between a set of options, so that the business user can complete the task in Process Portal without having to open the Coach for the task, as shown in Figure 4. Instead, users simply click a button or select an option with a single click.

Figure 4. Three inline task completion patterns
 

Create reusable user interfaces and behavior for Coaches

In IBM Business Process Manager V8, the Coaches are completely redesigned to contain Coach Views. Coach Views are reusable user interfaces that you can create and customize. Coach Views can comprise one or more other Coach Views. Coach Views include data bindings, layout information, and behavior. If paced in toolkits, Coach Views are reusable, thus providing consistent user interfaces and behaviors throughout a solution.

Template Coach Views can be used as basis for other higher-level Coach Views, as shown in Figure 5. The Content Box feature allows for derived Coach Views to add their own layout information. Additionally, derived Coach Views can modify the behavior of base Coach Views, such as visibility (either directly by overriding exposed parameters or using CSS stylesheets) or runtime behavior (by providing or modifying associated AJAX services).

Figure 5. New Coach View derived from a Template Coach View
 

Coach Views developers can create new Coach Views that are based on third-party libraries such as jQuery, YUI or Dojo. For example, you could create a JQuery Button Coach View, as shown in Figure 6, with specialized behaviors by providing JavaScript implementation for event handlers.

Figure 6. JQuery Button Coach View
 

All Coach Views appear on the Coach Designer palette and are ready for reuse when constructing other Coach Views.

Figure 7. JQuery Button Coach View is available for reuse 
 

To maintain backwards compatibility, Coaches from previous releases are now called Heritage Coaches. You can continue to use and maintain existing Heritage Coaches.

Enhanced support for error handling and termination handling

You now have more options when throwing and catching exceptions using error events in BPDs, subprocesses, and services (including Advanced Integration Services (AIS), which prior to V8 did not support exceptions). You can throw a specific error object by selecting a variable, and you can catch specific errors and map the caught error data to a variable.

Figure 8. Exception handling
 

For process instances, you have more flexibility in defining the scope of a terminate end event. You can designate whether all activities in the process instance are ended, even the parent processes. In earlier versions, terminating the entire process instance was the only option. New in V8 is the ability to terminate only the subprocess where the exception was thrown.

Integration with Enterprise Content Management systems

Enterprise Content Management systems help you manage documents of all types, such as records, images, and web pages. By incorporating the new Enterprise Content Management service into your business processes in IBM Business Process Manager V8, you can search, view, and store documents on Enterprise Content Management systems.

• You can use new Coach Views to quickly build a user interface for listing, viewing, and storing documents, as shown in Figure 9.
• Using a graphical user interface, you can create queries to the Enterprise Content Management system without having to know the Content Management Interoperability Service (CMIS) query language syntax.
• Because the Enterprise Content Management integration is based on the industry-standard CMIS interface, IBM Business Process Manager can connect to any Enterprise Content Management product that supports CMIS.

Figure 9. New ECM Coach Views: Document List and Document Viewer
 

Data visibility

A business object can be identified as a shared business object, making the business object and its values accessible for update to other instances or in parallel threads in the same instance.

New Process Center features

Control the installation of process application snapshots with governance processes

You can apply a governance process that provides control over the installation of process application snapshots, as shown in Figure 10. When this governance is in place for a process application, all requests made from Process Center to install a snapshot of that process application pass through the governance process. The process application snapshot is installed on a process server only after the approvals that are defined in that governance process are completed.

Figure 10. Governance Process Controls deployment of Process Apps
 

You also can create a governance process that reacts to the status change of a snapshot.

Attach reference links to sources

Process documentation now includes rich text content and reference links so that you can attach links to content or other sources, as shown in Figure 11. The following examples are possible reference links:

• A web site or a wiki page.
• A change request that is stored in a change management system.
• A test case that is stored in a quality management system.
• Artifacts that are managed by Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC)-enabled content providers.

Figure 11. Requirement defined in IBM Rational Team Concert is linked to AIS implementation
 

This linking capability helps you achieve traceability or provide details about the changes to a business object or service interface. The links are created using the OSLC wizard, which automatically connects the target requirements system and, using the OSLC API, gathers the requirements management system data which the user can select for inclusion in the documentation view.

Manage changes with compare and copy

Using the new compare and copy feature, you can selectively bring changes from a snapshot to the tip of a current track or main branch. Using graphical compare tools, you can understand which components are new, updated, or conflicting when comparing a snapshot to the tip of a track, as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Compare and copy summary of changes
 

To learn more about the exact details of the changes, you can see the two versions side by side, as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. Graphically compare changes between snapshot and the tip
 

Once you decide what work you want to bring to the tip, you can select changed components from one snapshot and copy them to the tip of a track that has associated dependencies.

If you are working in a disconnected mode and want to copy changes from a remote Process Center, you can create a new track when a process application is being imported. Then use the graphical Compare Copy capability to copy the changes

Sharing of content between Process Centers

You can now share and reuse toolkits authored in one Process Center with other connected Process Centers, as illustrated in Figure 14.

Figure 14. Provider Process Centers provide content for reuse to Consumer Process Center
 

Some of the key features that enable this capability are:

• Search for process applications, toolkits, and library items based on specified keywords.
• Filter results by type using the directed search capability.
• Administer the Process Center index, which is used to conduct searches on the Process Center repository. The index is automatically created and maintained. You now can manually re-create or update the index. You also can configure the index to be processed automatically.
• Preview individual results and view associated process documentation.
• Register to share process content with another Process Center. When you register two Process Centers with each other, you can share toolkits with other users or subscribe to toolkits that other users share, as shown in Figure 15.
• Share toolkits that provide common or exemplary content.
• Tag key library items as they are released so that subscribers know what to use.
• Publish individual snapshots and notify subscribers that a new version is available.
• Subscribe to shared process content (toolkits) from another Process Center.
• Receive notifications when new versions, or snapshots, become available.

Figure 15. Toolkits developed in one Process Center reused in another Process Center
 

Compare snapshots before instances are migrated to identify the potential locations of orphaned tokens

You can now use a policy file to compare snapshots before instances are migrated. Use the file to identify the potential locations of orphaned tokens (tokens that are associated with activities that were removed from a BPD), as shown in Figure 16, and specify whether each orphaned token is deleted or moved during instance migration.

Figure 16. Orphaned token policy files can be used to move or delete orphaned tokens
 

New Process Server and Integration Designer features

WebSphere eXtreme Scale primitives

New WebSphere ESB mediation flow primitives, as shown in Figure 17, provide elastic scalability with WebSphere eXtreme Scale, giving you cache content-enhancing connectivity for throttled backends and large binary data. Key uses include response caching, policy caching, and request persistence. The eXtreme Scale mediation primitives can be used only if WebSphere eXtreme Scale is installed.

Figure 17. New eXtreme Scale mediation primitives: Retrieve and Store
 

Service invocation-style simplification

Additional invocation-style options, shown in Figure 18, are available to control the invocation style for a service without the need to specify additional parameters and, in general, without the need to consider the invocation style that invoked the mediation flow. The new invocation styles are Async with deferred response, Async with callback, and As target.

Figure 18. Additional service invocation styles
 

Optimized XSLT transforms

The XSL Transformation mediation primitive is renamed the Mapping mediation primitive. To achieve improved runtime performance of an XSLT transform, you can specify the faster BO Mapper Java engine for runtime implementation.

Exchange information with CICS, IMS, or batch programs on z/OS

WebSphere-optimized local adapter (WOLA) is a new resource adapter in V8. Using WOLA, you can create and access external services to exchange information with COBOL, PL/I, C, and C++ programs that run on Customer Information Control System (CICS®), IBM Information Management System (IMS™) transaction systems, and batch programs on z/OS®. From the New External Service wizard, you can create services using WOLA that can make outbound calls from Process Server for z/OS to programs that run in an external address space on the same z/OS system. Existing, unchanged CICS programs and IMS transactions are driven using the WOLA CICS link server and the WOLA-over-IMS Open Transaction Manager Access (OTMA) interface. You also can target CICS programs and IMS transactions using the native WOLA APIs Host Service or Receive Request.

Figure 19. WOLA adapter tools in IBM Integration Designer
 

Control over system retries for SCA components and service invocation in mediation flows

You can set the retry count on the properties page of your module, or you can change the retry count for more than one module using the Configure Asynchronous Retry Count wizard, shown in Figure 20. When a system error occurs, asynchronous invocations retry until the specified retry count is reached. In earlier versions, modules were created with a retry count of 4. Now new modules are created with a retry count of zero. Modules from earlier versions keep existing retry settings during migration.

Figure 20. Asynchronous retry count settings
 

Unlike in previous versions, the retry behavior of mediation primitives overrides the asynchronous retry count, even if you do not specify retries. Before this release, the retry logic of these primitives was not integrated with the underlying asynchronous retry logic, so that retries could have happened when you defined no retries, or retries could have happened from both the mediation primitive and the service integration bus destination at the same time. Now the behavior defined in these mediation primitives is honored and overrides the service integration bus destination retry logic.

Because the mediation primitive overrides the asynchronous retry count, failover situations, such as when you have an issue with an application server or a messaging engine, might cause failed event manager messages. In previous releases, these messages might have been handled by the service integration bus destination.

New installation and configuration features

Improved installation

In a typical or custom installation using embedded IBM DB2® Express, and in a custom installation using a local DB2 database server, the installation catches more problems earlier and provides information about how to fix problems before starting the installation process.

The default passwords are removed from the custom installation. For a typical installation, the passwords are changed to comply with the password policy on all operating systems.

When you install Process Server, select Production for production use, or Non-production to use Process Server only for test, staging, or development. Separate licensing is now available for non-production Process Server use.

The Interactive Installation and Configuration Guide is a new form used to generate a set of installation and configuration topics that are customized to your precise installation needs. In the Interactive Installation and Configuration Guide form, shown in Figure 21, select the options you need for your installation scenario. As you select each option, the tool automatically removes options that are ruled out by your previous selections. For example, if you indicate that you plan to install the Express configuration, it removes Network Deployment as a potential topology. This form is available in the IBM Business Process Manager Information Center.

Figure 21. Custom IBM Business Process Manager Installation Guide
 

Improved database functionality and reliability

IBM Business Process Manager now supports Oracle® Data Guard, a high-availability, disaster-recovery, and data-protection mechanism that is used to create, manage, and monitor one or more standby databases, ensuring that Oracle databases for production can survive disasters and data corruptions.

You can now scale your database solution using the IBM DB2 pureScale® feature. Multiple database servers, known as members, process incoming database requests; these members operate in a clustered system and share data.

Improved flexibility for database password changes

You can now reconfigure the database password as needed after your database configuration is completed. Reconfiguring the database password provides flexibility if new users take on the database administrator role, or if your company has a policy of changing passwords regularly.

Mobile access

A new mobile application available from iTunes® for use with the Apple® iPhone® and iPad® provides access to both IBM Business Process Manager and Blueworks Live. It enables users to kick off, collaborate on, attach photos to, and complete work items on the go with IBM Business Process Manager.

Figure 22. IBM Business Process Manager mobile app available on iTunes
 

You can download the source code for the IBM Business Process Manager mobile app from the IBM's BPM Samples Exchange. The Samples Exchange hosts IBM business process and decision management samples and provides a community-enabled framework that fosters sample development and sharing.

Figure 23. Mobile Business Process Manager iOS Sample in the BPM Sample Exchange
 

REST/JSON API

IBM Business Process Manager continues to provide extensive REST/JSON APIs that are now used by the new version of the Process Portal and the new Business Process Manager mobile app. A test tool is provided with the Business Process Manager REST APIs. You can use this tool to learn about the REST APIs, and to test those APIs that you are planning to use in your application.

IBM BPM v7.5.1 at a glance

IBM Business Process Manager (IBM BPM) V7.5.1 is an update to the IBM comprehensive and consumable BPM platform that provides visibility and management of your business processes.

• Includes tooling and run-time for process design, execution, monitoring, and optimization, and is specifically designed to enable process owners and business users to engage directly in the improvement of their business processes
• Embraces latest Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 2.0 standard - import and export of executable BPMN 2.0 models, plus new event modeling constructs
• Improves overall usage experience - through improved management, installation, asset sharing, performance, security, serviceability, and migration
• Extends the power of IBM Case Manager case solutions with the rich capabilities of IBM BPM V7.5.1 business processes
• Presents a common view into work across IBM BPM V7.5.1 and IBM Case Manager for increased visibility and efficiency

What's new in IBM BPM V7.5

IBM Business Process Manager V7.5 provides the following new or enhanced features:

• A unified authoring environment for creating human-centric, standards-based Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) processes (usingProcess Designer) and integrating them with system-centric Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) processes (using Integration Designer).
• A shared repository and a common execution environment for both BPMN processes and BPEL processes. Together, the unified authoring environment, the shared repository, and the common execution environment provide these enhancements:
  • Graphical implementation and testing of process applications, services, user interfaces, and rules.
  • Standards-based process design, using BPMN.
  • IBM Integration Designer tooling for constructing services, data transformations, BPEL orchestrations, and integration to applications and back-end systems.
  • Business rule authoring that expresses business logic in an accessible manner, providing the same rule-authoring experience as WebSphere ILOG JRules. Rules content can be easily exported to WebSphere ILOG JRules, providing a starting point for business decisions.
  • The IBM ILOG JViews Chart charting engine, which has been added to IBM Business Process Manager V7.5. For existing customized charts, tooling is provided for converting from CDL format to Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) format.
  • Property sheets that make it possible to configure implementation details rather than code them, so that less technical users can participate in design.
  • Complete life-cycle integration, keeping the solution synchronized from model design through deployment.
  • Interactive playback that makes it possible to validate process requirements at any time.
  • Shared library of all process assets, for drag-and-drop reuse and collaborative implementation.
• Real-time control for inflight processes with these features:
  • The inbox in IBM Process Portal provides a consolidated view of all outstanding tasks.
  • A graphical view of process status helps process participants understand the remaining steps in the process.
  • Explicit event modeling defines workflow and exception handling.
  • Exposed process parameters and thresholds provide real-time control during inflight processing.
  • Ad hoc actions are supported; designated users can perform spontaneous tasks and alter workflow.
  • Users can communicate and collaborate on specific tasks during process execution.
  • Real-time scoreboards provide visibility into work in progress, along with the ability to take corrective action if necessary.
  • The framework for the Business Space user interface is included within Business Process Manager.
  • A federated task view makes it possible to perform tasks, manage work items, track performance, and respond to events, all in real time.
  • Optionally, users can perform process tasks directly from Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint. The Microsoft integrations are offered as optional add-on components.
• Enhanced monitoring capabilities, with process visibility into both human and system interactions. IBM Business Process Manager supports insightful dynamic process visibility with these features:
  • Performance measurements are expressed in terms of key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level agreements (SLAs).
  • Business Performance Data Warehouse automatically gathers and correlates performance events and business data to modeled process metrics, for process visibility that is always up to date.
  • The process Optimizer allows visualization of performance bottlenecks and other problems directly on the process model diagram.
• Features from WebSphere Process Server, incorporated now into IBM Process Server, provide transaction integrity and enhanced scalability from first projects to enterprise-wide solutions:
  • High scalability and availability are provided by the embedded WebSphere Application Server.
  • A single BPM runtime server (Process Server) supports the full range of business processes, service orchestration, and integration.
  • Built-in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) components include a flexible enterprise service bus (ESB) connectivity infrastructure for integrating applications and services.
  • Supported standards include BPMN and BPEL execution and many data and service standards.
  • Integration adapters connect application and information assets to the ESB to accelerate business integration projects with rapidly deployable, enterprise-ready connections based on best practices. A comprehensive set of capabilities is included to service-enable your assets, including packaged, custom, and legacy applications, technology protocols, and databases.
  • Rich repair and recoverability capabilities are provided, including automatic retries, manual repair, compensation, and store-and-forward.
• Support for high levels of program manageability and governance with these features:
  • Process Center provides a scalable central repository and control center for organizing and managing all process artifacts, applications, and services that are created as part of a BPM program.
  • Toolkits manage process artifacts for reuse across multiple process applications.
  • Snapshots capture the state of all artifacts in a process application or toolkit (including business process diagrams, rules, data, forms, services, and simulation scenarios) at a specific point in time with just one mouse-click.
  • Versioning restores any historical snapshot of a process application or toolkit.
  • A Process Server registry provides centralized tools to install and track deployed versions of multiple processes across various runtime server environments.
  • Life-cycle governance provides centralized control for governing deployment of processes and services to production run time.
• IBM Business Process Manager offers three product configurations (Advanced, Standard, and Express) to match the entry point of a company into business process management. For details, see "IBM Business Process Manager 7.5 configurations" in this information center.
• IBM Business Process Manager provides enhanced authoring tools and optional add-ons for integration with popular end-user productivity tools:
  • IBM Process Designer Standards-based process design tool that is part of the basic authoring environment for all three configurations of IBM Business Process Manager (Advanced, Standard, and Express). The process design tool enables rapid composition and continuous process change.
  • IBM Integration Designer Advanced configuration authoring environment for visually constructing services, data transformations, BPEL processes, and integration to applications and back-end systems. The authoring environment is used in collaboration with the process design tool to create robust and scalable process solutions. It includes a comprehensive set of adapters to service-enable assets, including packaged, custom, and legacy applications, technology protocols, and databases. The authoring environment is fully compatible with the latest versions of WebSphere Integration Developer.
  • IBM Business Process Manager for Microsoft Office add-on is an optional add-on to all three configurations (Advanced, Standard, and Express). Microsoft Office users can use IBM Business Process Manager to view and run IBM BPM tasks directly from their Office desktop. The Office add-on installs an IBM plug-in onto the end-user Office desktop client.
  • IBM Business Process Manager for Microsoft SharePoint add-on is an optional add-on to all three configurations (Advanced, Standard, and Express). Microsoft SharePoint users can use IBM Business Process Manager to view and run IBM BPM tasks directly from web parts that are dropped into SharePoint portal pages. The SharePoint add-on is installed on any SharePoint server that will be used to host interactions with processes through the IBM BPM web parts.
• IBM Business Process Manager V7.5 supports the following migrations and data imports:
  • Migration of process applications from WebSphere Process Server V6.1, V6.1.2, V6.2 and and V7.0, including design-time process definition assets and inflight process instances.
  • Migration of process applications from Lombardi Teamworks 6.1, Teamworks 6.2, Teamworks 7.0 and WebSphere Lombardi Edition V7.1 and V7.2, including design-time process definition assets and inflight process instances.
  • Import of design-time process models in BPMN 2.0 format from WebSphere Business Modeler V7.0, WebSphere Business Compass V7.0, and other popular modeling tools.
  • IBM BPM Advanced widgets for Business Space can be used with IBM WebSphere Portal.