Mapping an item to the business review/approval process

Describes the start of the business review/approval process

Description

In the context of the Product Information Management for Retailers solution, the business review/approval process begins when an ItemDispatcher collaboration object passes the Retail_Item business object to the WebSphereMQWorkflowConnector over its To port. The WebSphereMQWorkflowConnector maps the Retail_Item business object into a WebSphere® MQ Workflow container by passing it through the Retail_Item_to_MQWF_Retail_Item map. Examine this map in the Map Designer tool to view how the Retail_Item business object is mapped into the MQWF_Retail_Item application specific business object. At this point, the flow becomes asynchronous.
Note: The case of a business object's String attributes is normally not important. Product Information Management for Retailers solution collaboration objects always convert mixed-case Strings to lowercase characters by using the command toLowerCase() before testing their values against known values. An exception is that attributes that are used by Java™ to reference a business object remain in mixed-case characters. An example is an attribute name that is inserted in the multiple cardinality array of Retail_Missing_Attributes business objects in the internals.customer_data_missing_attributes attribute.
The Retail_Item_to_MQWF_Retail_Item map also invokes a specific WebSphere MQ Workflow process definition based on the command identified in the internals.item_command attribute of the Retail_Item business object. There are three WebSphere MQ Workflow process definitions in the Product Information Management for Retailers solution, which are located in the Retail.fdl file:
  • Retail_ItemCreate
  • Retail_ItemUpdate
  • Retail_ItemDelete
These process definitions are determined by the relationship definitions contained in the CMDTOWPN file for the mapping of the internals.item_command attribute to ProcessTemplateName. They allow users to select a container attribute to be modified.

A customized solution might require a different set of WebSphere MQ Workflow processes. In this case, modify the process definitions by loading them into WebSphere MQ Workflow Buildtime. Alternatively, provide your own process definitions to match the item commands that are specified in the Retail_Item_to_MQWF_Retail_Item map. Customize the map's custom move code to enable different WebSphere MQ Workflow process definition routings. The custom move code includes examples of how to generate definition names by either using a relationship or by hard coding them. The name of the WebSphere MQ Queue Manager might have to be changed to match a particular implementation.

Parent topic: Using a business process to review and approve an item