Oracle Magazine - May/June 2011

Next, on the Arguments Definition tab, you can specify what information to make available when the process starts. In this case, specify two data elements: the employee’s ID and the proposed new salary. On the Inputs tab, click + to add a new argument, called employeeIdentifier, of type Int. Click + again to add another Int argument named proposedSalary. On the Outputs tab, create a new Boolean argument named salaryRaiseAwarded and a String argument named comment. Click Finish to create the BPMN process.

Next, double-click the newly created SalaryRaiseApprovalProcess component to open it in a new tab. Click the blue activity icon in the top left corner to create your first business activity. This activity gathers information about the employee in question. Click the flow connecting the Start and End activities. The activity editor appears. Set the name of the new activity to GatherEmployeeFile. Click OK.

The second activity in the process is a human task in which a person decides whether to accept the proposed salary raise. This activity would correspond, for example, to an HR manager’s deciding to approve or reject the requested pay raise. To model it, click the green human task icon. Then click the flow from GatherEmployeeFile to End. The User Task dialog box appears. Specify the name as Decide on Salary Raise, and click OK.

The Role Properties dialog box automatically appears, prompting you to specify the name of the role that should execute the task. Click New. Enter HRManager as the name of the new role associated with this task. Click OK twice.

CONDI TIONAL EXECU TION WI TH AN EXCLUSIVE GATEWAY The next step adds some conditional logic to the process. In a later step, you will add an activity to actually trigger a salary increase, but the execution of this activity depends on the outcome of the Decide on Salary Raise task. This conditional execution of activities can be modeled with an exclusive gateway. Click the conditional execution icon (which looks like an x), and then click the flow from the human task to the End activity. Set the

name of the gateway to Approval granted switch in the gateway editor. Click OK.

Next, create a new activity called Apply Salary Raise. This activity will execute only when certain conditions are met. After you create the activity, the last step is to model its flows. Click the flow icon. Next click the gateway (the starting point for the flow) and then the Apply Salary Raise activity (the endpoint). After that, create another flow connecting the Apply Salary Raise activity to End.

The logical definition of the complete process is shown in Figure 1. This diagram clearly shows what the steps are, the order in which they will be executed, and the conditional execution of the Apply Salary Raise activity. Note that real-world process models are typically much larger and more complicated—with subprocesses, loops, parallel flows, timers, events, and signals. However, the steps for analyzing, designing, and implementing processes are largely the same, regardless of size and complexity.

Note that you can use Oracle BPM Studio to perform simulations on the business process. By defining average execution times and statistical distributions for each process activity, the number of resources available to execute activities, and the percentages for each conditional flow, you can perform process simulations and analyze their results. The analysis can help you identify bottlenecks and explore ways to optimize processes. These topics are outside the scope of this article.

SPECIFYING THE BUSINESS OBJEC T AND
PROCESS DATA OBJECTS

The next step is to specify the information that is manipulated and produced by the various process activities. Remember that the focus at this stage is still largely nontechnical. The task is simply to define the pieces of information relevant to the business process and not to go into detail about underlying information systems or technical details about how the data is stored.

First, navigate to the BPM Project Navigator (as shown in Figure 2). Right-click Business Catalog, select New, and then select Module to create a new module. Specify Data as the name of the module.

Figure 2: Adding a module in the BPM Project Navigator

Next, right-click the newly created module, select New, and then select Business Object to create a business object called SalaryRaiseRequest. This new business object will describe the pieces of information required in the process. On the SalaryRaiseRequest tab that appears, create the following attributes and specify the types as shown below: employeeIdentifier (Int) • proposedNewSalary (Int) • employeeName (String) • hiredateOfEmployee (Time) • currentSalaryForEmployee (Int) • jobForEmployee (String) • comment (String) •

The next step is to create process data objects, the variables of the business process. These objects can be based on standard types or custom business objects such as the just-created SalaryRaiseRequest.

In the BPM Project Navigator, navigate to and select SalaryRaiseApprovalProcess. Go down to the Structure window, right-click Process Data Objects, and select New.

In the dialog box that appears, enter salaryRaiseRequest for the name and click the Browse Types button to select the object type. Select <Component> from the menu, and select the SalaryRaiseRequest object as the object type. Click OK twice to create the object.

Next create a second process data object, called approvalOutcome, of type String. It will hold the outcome from the human task. At this point, select Save All from the File menu to save your work.