Roadmap for using Business Process Choreographer

Provides a high-level description of the sequence of the manual and automatic actions that occur when you install, configure, and use Business Process Choreographer.

If you use Business Process Choreographer, having a high-level understanding of the internal logic sequences and dependencies can help you diagnose and solve problems faster.

Runtime logic sequence

To get your first business process running on an application server and to have users working with a browser to access the Business Process Choreographer Explorer to process work items, the necessary tasks and subtasks are performed in the following sequence:

  1. Configure a business process container:
    1. Create the database and tables.
    2. If using WebSphere® MQ as the (Java™ Message Service) JMS provider, create the queue manager and queues.
    3. Install and configure the business process container application, using either:
      • The installation wizard
      • Sample scripts provided
      The following resources are configured:
      • Java database connectivity (JDBC) provider
      • JMS provider, queue manager, and security mappings for the roles of business process administrator and business process monitor
      • Create or reuse JMS resources: connection factory and queues
      • Install the Business Process Choreographer Explorer
    4. If you installed the business process container on a cluster using the business process container installation wizard, the business container is configured on all application servers in the cluster to have identical connection factory properties. These properties must be customized manually according to whether you are using a central queue manager for intra-process workload sharing or a cluster of queue managers for failover.
    5. The name of the business process container application depends on where you installed it. The name has the prefix BPEContainer_ followed by the InstallationScopeIdentifier value.
      • If you installed the business process container on a single application server, the application is named BPEContainer_nodeName_serverName.
      • If you installed the business process container on a cluster, the application is named BPEContainer_clusterName.
  2. Configure a human task container:
    1. Install and configure the human task container:
    2. Using the human task container installation wizard, the following resources are configured:
      • The human task container uses the same JMS provider and queue manager that is used by the business process container.
      • Security mappings for the roles of task administrator and task monitor are defined.
      • The JMS resources for the connection factory and queues can either be reused or created.
    3. If you installed the human task container on a cluster using the human task container installation wizard, the task container is configured on all application servers in the cluster to have identical connection factory properties. These properties must be customized manually according to whether you are using a central queue manager or a cluster of queue managers.
    4. The name of the human task container application depends on where you installed it. The name has the prefix TaskContainer_ followed by the InstallationScopeIdentifier value.
      • If you installed the human task container on a single application server, the application is named TaskContainer_nodeName_serverName.
      • If you installed the human task container on a cluster, the application is named TaskContainer_clusterName.
  3. Activate the business process container and human task container (if installed) by restarting the application server. On a cluster, you must restart all of the application servers.
  4. To ensure that the business process and human task container applications started successfully, verify that no error messages exist in the SystemOut.log file for the application server. On a cluster, check the log for all application servers in the cluster.
  5. Using either the administrative console or the wsadmin command, install an enterprise application that contains business processes, human tasks, or both.
    1. If you do not have your own application to try, you can install the travel booking sample from the Samples gallery.
    2. Errors will occur if the Business Process Choreographer database cannot be accessed, because all business process and task templates are stored in the database. These problems can be caused if the database system is not running, if any database clients are not correctly configured, or if errors were made defining the data source, for example, entering an invalid user ID or password.
    3. After the enterprise application is installed, it is in the state stopped, and any process and task templates that it contains are in the state started. No process or task instances can be created until the application is started. Select it and click Start to start the application. When the application server is restarted, the enterprise applications on it are started automatically.
    4. At this point, the input queues are read for the first time. Errors will occur at this stage if the queue manager is not running, or if any mistakes were made defining the JMS provider or JMS resources.
  6. Configure the WebSphere Process Server security environment for secured applications, including assigning users and groups to roles defined in business process applications and configuring authentication mechanisms.
  7. If you did not install the Business Process Choreographer (BPC) Explorer when configuring the business process container, you can install it by running the clientconfig.jacl script.
  8. Start the BPC Explorer, using a Web browser, by opening the page http://app_server_host:port_number/bpc.
    1. If the BPC Explorer application BPCExplorer_Installation_Scope_Identifier is not installed you will get an error.
    2. Enter a user ID and password on the log on screen.
    3. If the user ID is known to the system, and the password is correct, any existing work items will be displayed in the To Do list.
    4. If your user ID is authorized, you can start an instance of a process template, enter any input message parameters.
      • If the business process contains an activity that requires human interaction, a work item is added to the To Do lists of all the potential owners. If you are one of these potential owners, you can display your My To Dos page to work with the work item.
      • If the process instance is a microflow (that is not a BPEL-based process implementing a one-way operation) it will display an output message when the process ends.
  9. Reaching this point means that your Business Process Choreographer system is fully functional. Most users will either use the standard BPC Explorer or a customized version of the BPC Explorer work with work items, process templates, process instances, and tasks.
  10. At the end of the Business Process Choreographer life-cycle, if you want to remove Business Process Choreographer from your machine, you must stop delete, and uninstall things in a particular order:
    1. Uninstalling enterprise applications that contain business processes requires the following actions:
      1. To prevent the creation of any new process instances, you must stop all process and task templates in the enterprise applications.
      2. Log onto the BPC Explorer as a process administrator and make sure that all process and task instances have stopped and are deleted.
      3. Stop all enterprise applications that contain business processes. This step will fail if any task or process instances belonging to the application still exist.
      4. Uninstall the enterprise applications that contain business processes.
    2. Uninstall the business process container, as described in Using a script to remove the Business Process Choreographer configuration.
    3. Manually delete the database, queue manager, and any other resources that will not be reused.

People involved

To get Business Process Choreographer fully operational can require the following people:

Parent topic: Planning to use Business Process Choreographer