Administering a Review scenario

The Reviewing a Process scenario describes how you can use WebSphere® Business Modeler Publishing Server to make manage a review of a business process.

In this, the Administering a Review scenario, you are a business analyst who has been given the task of setting up a review of a business process that has been modeled in IBM® WebSphere Business Modeler. You will be working with a colleague who created the model, as well as one or more knowledgeable employees who can review it, and comment on its accuracy.

You will work in both the Publishing Server Access Control and Publishing Server Manager pages, and will use the following widgets:
  • Publishing Server Access Control
  • Publishing Server Manager
  • Publishing Server Status

Here are the widgets with each of the main areas of interest enumerated and described.

The Publishing Server Access Control widget

The administration page with the standard associated widgets.

Area Description
1 The Publishing Server Access Control widget
  A The Users/Groups view
  B The Projects view
2 Publishing Server Status
  C The Release Project view
  D The Delete Elements view
  E The Purge Database view
3 The Publishing Server Manager widget
  F The Job status table
  1. To begin, you will have to set up a business space where each of the contributing parties can collaborate openly. Create the business space as follows:
    1. Launch the Business Space environment and log in. You will see the Business Space Manager that shows the details on all of the business spaces that exist on this publishing server.
    2. Click the Create new Business Space icon (The new business space icon).
    3. In the Create New Business Space window, give the space an appropriate name, click From a template, select Reviewing from the list and click OK.
    A new business space based on the Reviewing template opens. By default, it will contain the following pages (each represented by a tab):
    • Draft Artifacts
    • Publishing Server Access Control
    • Publishing Server Manager
    • Released Artifacts
  2. You will now have to make sure that all employees who are going to be involved with this review process have access to this business space.
    1. From your newly created business space, click Manage Business Spaces.
    2. Highlight your business space in the list.
    3. Click Share this Business Space.
    4. To chose the employees that should be able to look at the content of this business space, select their names or the groups they belong to from the Viewers list.
    5. Similarly, for employees who should be able to make changes to the content of this business space, chose them from the Editors list.
    6. Click Save.
  3. You will now have to arrange to bring the modeled business process into the newly created business space. To do this, you must give your colleague who modeled the business process in IBM WebSphere Business Modeler permission to export it to your publishing environment:
    1. Go to the Publishing Server Access Control page.
    2. In the Users/Groups section, expand the list of users and select your colleague's name.
    3. In the Projects section, expand Publishers, select Publisher Access, and click Submit.
    You contact your colleague, who is now able to publish the business process model to your business space.
  4. It is now up to you to give the necessary access to the employees who will be participating in the actual review of the business process. During the installation and configuration of WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server, all of the necessary employees have been included in the LDAP repository that this business space will use. To grant review access, proceed as follows for each of the employees participating in the review:
    1. In the Users/Groups section of the Publishing Server Access Control page, expand the list of users and select your colleague's name.
    2. In the Projects view, expand Draft Projects until you see the name of the business process to be reviewed. Preceding the name of the business process is a set of three interactive icons that are used to set permissions. In order, these icons indicate the following: Delete | View | Comment.
    3. Click on any of these icons to cycle through the various options, and click Submit to set the access rights accordingly.
  5. It is time to announce that the business process is ready for review. Send an email to each of the participating employees with the URL of your business space, along with all the necessary details about the review such as a deadline for comments. It is now up to them to take a close look at the business process, and provide comments for its improvement. For more information on how participants view the process and create comments, see Reviewing a Process scenario.
  6. When the deadline for the review passes, you gather all of the comments and see that changes to the business process model are needed. You contact the colleague who modeled it, and request that these modifications be made. When the new model is ready, you instruct your colleague to publish it over the one already on your publishing server, thereby deleting the old version outright. Alternatively, if you had decided to publish the new one separately as an updated version, you could have kept the old one around until such time that you decided to delete it manually as follows:
    1. In the Delete Elements view of Publishing Server Manager widget, expand Draft Projects until you see the name of the business process that you want to delete. Preceding the process is a set of two interactive icons that are used to configure deletion options. In order, these icons indicate: Delete Element | Delete Comment.
    2. Click on any of these icons to cycle through the various options, and click Delete.
    The newly deleted process will appear in the table in the Job status view with the current state listed.
  7. You send this newly modeled process out for review as well. As you gather the comments for this review, it is obvious that the changes were sufficient; the reviewers are all pleased with the new model, and provide their sign-off. It is now up to you to release the business process:
    1. In the Release Project view of Publishing Server Manager widget, select the business process from the list, and click Release. Once released, the project is moved to the Released Artifacts page where it will remain as the official model of this particular business process.
  8. Shortly after the review process is complete, you are informed that an employee needs to view the official business process model in order to show it to an ISO inspector. You will need to grant that employee the proper access as follows:
    1. Go to the Publishing Server Access Control page.
    2. In the Users/Groups section, expand the list of users and select this employees's name.
    3. In the Projects section, expand Released Projects.
    4. Configure the permissions for this business process as needed, and click Submit.