As briefly described in my article Animating the Business Process, I have embarked on experimenting with some rather nice tools called Intalio|BPMS. The support aspects of their website seem to be designed to really get you up and running quickly, whilst making sure you get the right kind of guidance to make your experiment more successful. So, me being the rather disciplined when it comes to technology, I’ve followed their step-by-step configuration guides to set up Intalio|BPMS Designer and the Intalio|BPMS Server. I had a little tweaking to do to get this working [1][2], but it didn’t take much time at all.
Implementing a simple process in Intalio|Designer
I also worked through Intalio’s introductory first lesson on implementing your first process. The layout of the tutorial is not exactly intuitive, but after a while you start to familiarise yourself with the tool’s interface (if you’ve worked with Eclipse before then you’ll know what I mean) and of course, you’ll see with your own eyes the construction of a simple business process from notation to running process.
After completing Intalio tutorial steps 1 to 3
I have added a few screenshots of my configuration just to prove it all works fine, and if I can do it then most folks can!
Steps 1 to 3 of the tutorial takes you through setting up your own workspace for a new BPMN diagram containing a few tasks and events, as shown in the screenshot here.
Click on the images to enlarge them.
After completing Intalio's tutorial steps 4 to 7
Steps 4 to 7 walk you through adding the interface which connects the new process model to the ‘outside world’, and the related message data and flows, and then integration with a few operations from an existing web service.
Step 8 takes you through data mapping; that is, how data passes from one pool to another via variables. In this tutorial the variables are automatically created when the web service is integrated and the message connections are created.
My screenshots here show: Setting up the data mapping created for the web service to receive whatever city the user enters (into the variable) when they start the process (getCityTime);
After completing 1st part of step 8 in the tutorial
And, setting up the data mapping created to return the result from the web service to the user.
After completing the 2nd part of step 8 in the tutorial
Now, the process can be deployed, tested, and executed. Intalio provide the next tutorial deploying and testing your first process to take you through the next steps. Again, I provide some screenshots of my experiment.
Deploying a simple process in Intalio|Designer
Validating and deploying the process: any real-time errors that prevent the process from being deployed and executed will be identified so you can resolve them, after which, you can then choose the processes to deploy. A status report is produced so you can see if the deployment was successful. [2]
Successful deployment of the process
Click on the images to enlarge them.
Testing a simple process in Intalio|BPMS Console
Checking the process deployed correctly: You connect and log into the Intalio|BPMS Console to do this. As shown here, you can see the GetTime process in the listing.
Logged into Intalio|BPMS Console to check deployed process
Starting the process: Intalio|BPMS Console includes a handy little tool that creates a web-form based on the process designed, so you can enter data to kick-start the process. So you have to imagine here that this web-form would be developed into a more attractive user web front-end, prompting the user to input the city name to receive the local time of that city.
Intalio|BPMS Console web-form to input data to start the process
The user will receive the UTC time and the city time of their choosing. Voila!
Results from the data input via the web-form
Need more information on each process run? If you run this process several times (to build up the number of instances), you will see under the Instances tab that more information is provided on these.
Instances of the process in detail
If you got this far, then Intalio tell you you’re ready to move onto learn more advanced concepts with Intalio|BPMS [3]. I will write another article to see if this is really true!
[1] if you decide to install the Intalio|BPMS Server, the instructions provided are excellent except for one point: once you have downloaded the zip file containing the Intalio BPMS Server, create a new directory called intalio-bpms on the C:\ and extract all the files to this directory. Then, you need to ensure that all subfolders such as bin, common, conf, databases, etc. are directly under C:\intalio-bpms. On my installation, I had to move these subfolders into C:\intalio-bpms, before deleting the surplus folder intalio-bpms-6.0.3.010.01. It’s a small point but important if you want the installation to be successful!
[2] to avoid any unnecessary deployment failures, make sure all the run-time components are running properly (as stated in the pre-requisites of the tutorial), to include in your checklist:
1. ensure your web server is already started (WAMP, MAMP, LAMP….);
2. ensure Tomcat is running;
Ffor Windows users – open Command Line. Use the CD.. command to get command prompt pointing to C:\intalio-bpms\bin .Type startup.bat (and hit Enter to run it). You should now see the Tomcat window open for the Catalina Server startup.
This is based on the assumption that you have your files in the directory structure as stated in [1] above! Intalio provide the Tomcat installation information under C:\intalio-bpms\tomcat-docs, which includes trouble-shooting tips.
[3] don’t forget to shutdown Tomcat!
For Windows users – open Command Line. Type C:\intalio-bpms\bin\shutdown
Tags
Tags: bpmn, bpmn tutorial, business process, data mapping, eclipse, events, exchanges, flows, intalio, pools, process, process deployment, swim lanes, task, web service
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See also:
Progressing with Intalio|BPMS Hands-on journey using web forms and simple workflow using Intalio|BPMS
Animating the business process A journey into engineering the business process
Business administration: second in the ABCs to run a good business Part 3 of a series on “Starting your own business”
Corporate image: third of the ABCs to run a good business Part 4 of the series “Starting your own business”
An Activity in business process modeling Flashcard of an Activity in business process modeling
