Process Logic 5'5

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Process Logic 5.5

• Background and Technical Details

Brett Adam Snr. Dir. Market Development
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The Business Focus
This requires a Service Oriented Architecture
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Your Focus
Is this what youre focused on?
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Versatas Role
Versata can have a dramatic impact On your
organizations ability to deliver Large,
distributed WebLogic applications
Versata needs to be an essential part of
your Java application infrastructure If you want
to maximize your return of using The Java Service
Oriented Architecture For application
development, application execution and ongoing
application management
This is why were here today
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Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Web Container
Supports multiple, simultaneous interfaces
presentation layer
Business Logic Container
process layer
Maps systems to the processes of your business
BEA WebLogic
service layer
Delivers reusable business transactions
data logic layer
Applies business logic to your corporate data
Data Container
integration layer
Integrates with the rest of your enterprise
back office value chain
Leverages the back office enterprise systems
By 2006, the service-oriented architecture (SOA)
Web and non-Web will be the mainstream
practice for enterprise software engineering (0.7
probability).Source Gartner
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An Example of the Business Logic in the Layers

• Process Layer - Process Logic automates the
  sequence of transactions over time
• Example if requested funds transfer over 1
  million, get approval or start the overdraft
  process if the customer cant cover the
  withdrawal
• Services Layer - Transaction Logic automates a
  business transaction at a point in time
• Example transfer funds from checking to savings
  or calculate the customers account balance
• Data Layer - Data Logic automates enforcement of
  rules about data elements
• Example customer balance cannot exceed credit
  limit or credit limit is either 1M, 500K, or 50K

Process Layer ?
Services Layer ?
Data Layer ?
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SOA Extends Business Logic to Web Services

• SOA is the best architecture for large,
  distributed applications
• But, it also sets you up for Web Services

Now youre ready for Web Services!
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Productivity Issue of Implementing a Service
Oriented Architecture
Java IDEs, HTML Java Editors, JSP Wizards
Dreamweaver, JBuilder, VA Java, Vignette, Visual
Cafe
presentation layer
process layer
50 Automated / 50 Manual
Workflow Servers FileNet, InConcert, Home-grown
approaches
service layer
20 Automated / 80 Manual
Java IDEs,Wizards, Frameworks JBuilder, VA
Java, Visual Cafe
data logic layer
20 Automated / 80 Manual
integration layer
Integration EAI Vendors WebMethods, Mercator,
Vitria, Tibco, IBM MQSeries, WRQ
back office value chain
Enterprise Application SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel,
home-grown solutions
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Java IDEs are not a Solution for Building
Managing Business Logic

• Java IDEs
• Code Editor, Debugger
• RAD for Presentation Layer
• RAD for Business Logic Layer Stubs Skeletons
  ONLY
• RAD for Integration Layer Point to Point ONLY
• Framework/Library
• BUT, Java IDEs
• DONT Capture Business Logic Declaratively
• DONT Manage Business Logic as an Asset
• DONT Provide Graphical Design of Business Logic
• DONT Enforce Compliance to J2EE or SOA for
  Business Logic
• DONT Automatically Reuse Business Logic

Java IDEs are absolutely necessary for
implementing many components of an SOA, but dont
provide the necessary requirements for creating,
executing, changing, or reusing the business
logic in your Java Application Infrastructure
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What is Process Logic?
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• Why should I care?

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Beyond Traditional Applications

• Some business logic is hard to express or hard
  to change with current approaches
• Business transactions that involve multiple
  steps, especially over time, or across multiple
  systems or people
• Systems that interact with humans
• Assignment
• Notification
• Systems that must adapt on the fly
• Exceptions
• Escalation
• Systems that deliver more management
• Audit
• Metrics
• Execution
• With less developer effort!

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The E-Business Process Imperative

• .By 2003/2004, organizations that have not
  automated their key line of business applications
  and provided this flexibility (e.g. extracting
  the business rules from the coding layer) at the
  infrastructure and commerce chain levels will be
  at a significant competitive disadvantage.
• Meta Group, The Process Automation Evolution,
  Workflow 2000
• In general, companies can expect to accelerate
  their development/integration time by 50 to 150
  using workflow instead of coding business logic
  into applications. Improvements on this order of
  magnitude can also be expected for modifying the
  process because it is easier to change the
  business process behavior by altering a process
  model than by changing the application code
• Giga Information Group, Workflow Goes
  Mainstream April 21, 2000

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Are you Managing complex state transitions?

• If your application has
• Hard-coded transaction states, like a flag set to
  approved, pending, etc.
• Approval cycles
• Simple approval is easy add a state attribute on
  an order and have a screen query by this
  attribute
• But what happens when approval is required at 2
  levels or in parallel or one approval is
  conditional?
• Additional state values are required
• Additional state flags are required schema
  starts to change!

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Trying to drive cross-functional efficiency?

• What if you need to notify a sales manager when a
  large order is created?
• Send an email?
• What if the event is time-based?
• Send an email if work notcompleted within 24
  hours?
• Escalate to a manager if notcompleted in three
  days?
• Retry five times?
• How to audit measure what occurred?
• To prove contractual compliance
• To drive operational improvement

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Trying to efficiently coordinate long
transactions?

• If your app needs a multi-step process or
  involves people of different roles in one
  business transaction
• Create lookup tables and code for roles
• Design approval cycle and state-chart
• Create attributes in database to track state
• Write code to validate each state-change against
  the allowed roles
• Create screens that query basedon current
  state and rolesof logged in User
• Allow users to update state
• And then change all of this as roles and
  processes change.

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Trying to deliver operational visibility?

• Visibility
• dashboard, whats going on
• Wheres this process at?
• Auditing
• What happened who did it
• Metrics
• Cycle times, business analysis
• Reporting against cross-functional execution
• Aggregate and specific historical analysis

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And trying to adapt to constant change?

• Exceptions
• Todays exception is tomorrows new use case, and
  leads to next years new system
• Not fast enough!
• True Exception handling requires the flexibility
  to change rapidly
• In some cases, on the fly
• And the ability to observe whats going on
• To form the basis of new best practice process

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If you have face those challenges in your
solution

• The you have a Business Process Management
  problem!
• Business Process Management delivers key
  operational capabilities encompassing

Definition Enactment
Visibility Reliability Adaptability
Proactivity Metrics Auditability
Scalability
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Business Process Defined

• Some Definitions
• Business Process Automation or Workflow the
  enactment and coordination of business processes,
  in whole, or in part, during which documents,
  information or tasks are passed from one
  participant to another for action, according to a
  set of procedural rules
• Business Process Model a sequence of Activities
  and Transitions
• Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)
• Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI)

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Introducing, the Business Process

• We can express process logic most easily in terms
  of a business process model

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What is Process Logic

• Graphical specification transaction flow
  (workflow)
• System automates delivery of work to users
  worklists
• No hunting
• Active database

• Process Management
• Deadlines, Escalation
• Monitoring, Auditing
• Integrated with Transaction Logic

enables
So basic that Analysis starts here!
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Process Concepts
Activities (assigned to participants)

• With visibility
• Monitoring
• Auditing

Sequenced via transitions

• Branch (conditionally)
• Split (parallel execution)
• Synchronize
• Loop, Escalate, etc.

Controlled by properties (declaratively)
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Process in the Enterprise Architecture Logical
view

• What
• Application Databases
• Transactions
• Business Rules
• Business Logic

• Who
• Roles
• Authorities
• Workgroups
• Directory Services

Applications
People
Processes

• When
• Process Rules
• WorkLists
• MetricsAudit Trails
• Process Engines

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Activity

• Activities are representations of units of work.
  They may have the following properties
• Activity Type assignable, autonomous
• Transaction, email, monitor, web service, delay,
  
• Participant person, role, rule-based
• Martin, help desk, southeast area managers,
• Notification method
• Worklist, email, pager, phone, MDB, IM,
• Application invocation
• What application to invoke (and parameters) to
  provide for participant to complete activity

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Transitions

• Transitions model and control the flow between
  Activities
• They are the string joining the pearls

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Transitions

• Transition semantics
• Overdue, Conditional, Abort, Synchronous,
  True/False

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Transitions

• Synchronizer waits until all incoming
  transitions have fired
• Discriminator waits until first transition
  fires
• Terminal ends process when first transition
  fires

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Process Management Capabilities

• Monitoring
• Visibility
• Audit

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A Shift from Monolithic Systems

• Domain-oriented
• Multiple transaction screens bundled in one
  application or one session for supporting all
  aspects of the domain (e.g. Order Management
  System)
• User chooses what to do and when
• Typified by constant hunting behavior
• System supports the process
• But does not drive the process
• State is scattered across multiple business
  objects
• No one place to see the overall business
  process state
• Process is defined and managed externally
• Often manually
• This is the typical Application architecture today

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To Process Managed Systems

• Task-specific transactional applications
• One objective each (e.g. Place Order, Approve
  Order, Update Customer)
• Process Model is explicit and drives the solution
• The String through the Pearls
• Can be layered on top of existing systems
• Work Delivery application
• Drives invocation of Task-Specific applications
• Additional management benefits for free
• Usage becomes push from the active process
  logic engine
• Metrics, Audit etc. all handled by the logic
  server
• Task Oriented and Process Driven
• More granular, easier to reuse, easier to change
• Maps directly to Service Oriented Architecture
• Preparing the ground for Web Services

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New Process Managed applications
Worklist Delivery Application
Process Presentation
 
 
 
Start
End
Process
Task-specific Presentation
Transactions
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Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Web Container
Supports multiple, simultaneous interfaces
presentation layer
Business Logic Container
process layer
Maps systems to the processes of your business
BEA WebLogic
service layer
Delivers reusable business transactions
data logic layer
Applies business logic to your corporate data
Data Container
integration layer
Integrates with the rest of your enterprise
back office value chain
Leverages the back office enterprise systems
By 2006, the service-oriented architecture (SOA)
Web and non-Web will be the mainstream
practice for enterprise software engineering (0.7
probability).Source Gartner
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New Process Logic functionality in 5.5
3
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New Expression Builder

• Used in many places throughout Process Designer
• Understands Process Model objects and properties
• Makes specifying conditional and other
  expressions much, much easier
• Also expression validation!
• Check any expression with a button click

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Curved transition lines!

• Allows multiple transitions between two
  Activities without confusion
• Smart enough to handle back transitions as well

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New Binary Decisions

• A decision node evaluates one condition with the
  result triggering either of two transitions
  true or false.
• Simplifies modeling semantics for common
  flow-chart and matches UML Activity Diagrams

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Dynamic Sub-process

• Deferrable sub-process instantiation
• The initiation or cloning of a subprocess can be
  deferred until runtime
• Allows a subprocess template to be selected on
  the fly
• Very powerful feature for managing large
  processes
• Also very useful for escalation subprocesses
• Reduces working set requirements in the database

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New Activity Deadlines

• Set absolute or relative deadline for an activity
  to complete
• Create transitions from the activity for deadline
  due or overdue events.

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Automatic Process Termination

• Processes can now close themselves when the reach
  the end node and also destroy themselves - less
  work for 80 of customers

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Straight Through Processing

• Declaratively determine transaction boundaries of
  autonomous activities (and their created
  workitems)
• Combine with other Transition behaviors
• Unique feature!

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New Exception Transitions

• Create compensating activities or processes based
  on activity exceptions or aborts.

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New Exception Management features

• Exception Handling Framework
• It is now clear what happens when an
  AutonomousWorkItem fails to perform
• Configurable policies
• The default strategy aborts the Worktem, logs the
  Exception and places the WorkItem on the
  ExceptionWorklist
• The Workbench has been enhanced to allow aborted
  WorkItems to be restarted
• Includes automated workitems

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Process Logic Workbench

• Runtime interrogation of process state
• Completely rewritten from VIS 2.0
• Primary runtime debugging tool
• Implemented in JSP

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New Validation capability

• Checks entire Process Model for errors
• Checks expressions, transitional flow
• Checks Decision node semantics

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J2EE Enhancements

• Access Process Logic Engine through Session Beans
  (EJB 1.1)
• Participate automatically in JTS transactions
• Familiar J2EE programming model

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Summary

• Operational efficiency demands better business
  process management
• Building process support into your schema and
  code is too constraining and expensive
• Business Process Management technology makes the
  process explicit and declarative
• Maps to the way the business expresses
  requirements
• Changes the application architecture to be more
  granular (task oriented)
• Versata Process Logic delivers BPM as first
  class Business Logic
• With full Transaction Logic integration!
• Investment in Versata Business Logic technology
  can now be extended across the Enterprise
• Process Logic Engine provides runtime business
  value
• Delivering real business benefits with less IT
  effort

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QA
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SLIDES - If you would like a copy of the slides,
please send an email to julie_meister_at_versata.com
DEMO - For a hands on look at our product,
check out our online demo http//www.versata.com/p
ldemo MORE INFO - If you would like more
information about process logic please contact
Kirk Lynd at 510-628-1562 or kirk_lynd_at_versata.com
Thank you for attending!