MANNING Tijs Rademakers FOREWORDS BY Tom Baeyens AND Joram Barrez Executable business processes in BPMN 2.0 IN ACTION <definitions> <process> <startEvent/> <sequenceFlow/> <endEvent/> </process> </definitions> Activiti Designer Activiti Engine Process implementation Web forms Ta sk s Jobs Processes WS REST DB Activiti provides a complete BPM solution, starting with the Activiti Designer to draw your business processes using BPMN. The XML output of the Activiti Designer is deployed to the Activiti Engine that runs the process definition. The Activiti Engine executes automated steps, like calling a web service, as well as manual steps that involve people and web forms. Activiti in Action Activiti in Action E XECUTABLE B USINESS P ROCESSES IN BPMN 2.0 TIJS RADEMAKERS MANNING Shelter Island For online information and ordering of this and other Manning books, please visit www.manning.com. The publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity. 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Technical proofreader: Andy Verberne 20 Baldwin Road Copyeditor: June Eding PO Box 261 Proofreader: Nermina Miller Shelter Island, NY 11964 Typesetter: Gordan Salinovic Cover designer: Marija Tudor ISBN 9781617290121 Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 17 16 15 14 13 12 v brief contents PART 1 INTRODUCING BPMN 2.0 AND ACTIVITI 1 1 ■ Introducing the Activiti framework 3 2 ■ BPMN 2.0: what’s in it for developers? 19 3 ■ Introducing the Activiti tool stack 32 4 ■ Working with the Activiti process engine 49 PART 2 IMPLEMENTING BPMN 2.0 PROCESSES WITH ACTIVITI 85 5 ■ Implementing a BPMN 2.0 process 87 6 ■ Applying advanced BPMN 2.0 and extensions 112 7 ■ Dealing with error handling 146 8 ■ Deploying and configuring the Activiti Engine 169 9 ■ Exploring additional Activiti modules 193 PART 3 ENHANCING BPMN 2.0 PROCESSES 223 10 ■ Implementing advanced workflow 225 11 ■ Integrating services with a BPMN 2.0 process 260 12 ■ Ruling the business rule engine 286 BRIEF CONTENTS vi 13 ■ Document management using Alfresco 311 14 ■ Business monitoring and Activiti 340 PART 4 MANAGING BPMN 2.0 PROCESSES 367 15 ■ Managing the Activiti Engine 369 vii contents foreword by tom baeyens xv foreword by joram barrez xvii preface xix acknowledgments xxi about this book xxiii about the cover illustration xxviii PART 1 INTRODUCING BPMN 2.0 AND ACTIVITI 1 1 Introducing the Activiti framework 3 1.1 The Activiti tool stack 4 1.2 Getting to know Activiti 5 A little bit of history 5 ■ The basics of the Activiti Engine 6 Knowing the competitors 7 1.3 Installing the Activiti framework 9 1.4 Implementing your first process in Activiti 11 Say hello to Activiti 12 ■ Implementing a simple book order process 14 1.5 Summary 18 CONTENTS viii 2 BPMN 2.0: what’s in it for developers? 19 2.1 Taking a closer look at BPM 20 Walking around the BPM life cycle 21 2.2 Evolution to BPMN 2.0 22 Wasn’t there a standard called WS-BPEL? 22 ■ And then there was BPMN 2.0 23 ■ Getting your head around all the BPMN 2.0 constructs 24 2.3 Introducing BPMN 2.0 from a developer’s viewpoint 26 High-level modeling with BPMN 2.0 26 ■ Detailed process modeling 28 2.4 Summary 31 3 Introducing the Activiti tool stack 32 3.1 Working with the Activiti Modeler 33 Installing the Activiti Modeler 33 ■ Modeling processes with the Activiti Modeler 34 3.2 Adding technical details with the Activiti Designer 36 Getting up and running with Activiti Designer 36 ■ Designing a process from scratch 37 ■ Testing processes with the Activiti Designer 39 ■ Importing a Modeler process into the Designer 42 3.3 Managing the Engine using the Activiti Explorer 45 3.4 Processes and tasks with the Activiti Explorer 46 3.5 Summary 48 4 Working with the Activiti process engine 49 4.1 Creating an Activiti development environment 50 Getting familiar with the Activiti libraries 50 ■ Mavenizing your Activiti project 51 ■ Logging in the Activiti Engine 53 Developing and testing with the Activiti Engine 54 4.2 Using the Activiti Engine API 56 Starting process instances with the RuntimeService 57 ■ Working with user tasks via the TaskService 59 ■ Deleting process definitions with the RepositoryService 64 ■ Creating users, groups, and memberships with the IdentityService 66 ■ A sneak peek into the past with the HistoryService 67 4.3 Using plain Java to do BPM 72 Java service task with class definition 73 ■ Introducing asynchronous behavior 75 ■ Java service task with class definition and field extensions 76 ■ Java service task with method and value expressions 78 [...]... 14.1 Storing Monitoring business processes 341 Introducing business activity monitoring (BAM) 341 Introducing complex event processing (CEP) 343 336 xiii CONTENTS 14.2 Meeting the Esper framework Kick-starting Esper 14.3 345 Monitoring Activiti processes with Esper Integrating Activiti and Esper Esper setup 356 14.4 345 Introducing event windows ■ 355 ■ 347 355 Testing the Activiti and Monitoring Activiti. .. Separating process logic Using the BPMN 2.0 web service task 264 Integrating with Apache Camel 268 Introducing Apache Camel 268 Sending and receiving process messages with Apache Camel 272 ■ xii CONTENTS 11.4 Integrating with Mule ESB 276 Introducing Mule ESB 276 Sending and receiving process messages with Mule ESB 280 ■ 11.5 12 Summary 285 Ruling the business rule engine 12.1 286 Introducing business. .. code listings Roadmap The book has 14 chapters divided into 4 parts: ■ ■ ■ ■ Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Introducing BPMN 2.0 and Activiti Implementing BPMN 2.0 processes with Activiti Enhancing BPMN 2.0 processes Managing BPMN 2.0 processes There are also two appendixes Appendix A explains how to work with the source code examples, and appendix B covers elements supported by Activiti BPMN 2.0 Part... with Activiti 301 Activiti and the business rule task 301 process definition 303 12.4 ■ Using business rules in a Creating a web-based rule editor 307 Introducing flexibility with a custom rule authoring application 307 12.5 13 Summary 309 Document management using Alfresco 13.1 Introducing Alfresco Community Installing Alfresco Community 312 integration in Alfresco 315 13.2 311 312 ■ Introducing Activiti. .. CONTENTS 4.4 Using Spring with Activiti 79 Creating a generic Spring configuration for Activiti 79 Implementing a Spring-enabled unit test for Activiti 81 4.5 Summary 84 PART 2 IMPLEMENTING BPMN 2.0 PROCESSES WITH ACTIVITI 85 5 Implementing a BPMN 2.0 process 87 5.1 Introducing a real business process 88 Analyzing the loan request process an XML process file 89 5.2 88 ■ Developing script and... What’s a business rule? 287 Business rule management systems 288 Using different types of rules in business processes 289 Business rule management in BPMN 2.0 291 ■ ■ ■ 12.2 Entering the rule world of Drools 292 Drools, the business logic integration platform 292 Introducing Drools Expert 293 Hands-on with Drools Expert 296 Using spreadsheets to create Drools decision tables 298 ■ ■ 12.3 ■ Integrating Drools... Summary 168 Deploying and configuring the Activiti Engine 169 8.1 Choosing between deployment options 170 Embedding the Activiti Engine in a Java application 170 Using a standalone Activiti Engine instance 172 Choosing between the deployment options 175 ■ ■ 8.2 Using a Spring-managed Activiti Engine 176 Creating a process engine from a config file or Java 176 a process engine from a Spring configuration... decisions and sending email Controlling flow with an exclusive gateway an email service task 102 5.5 Deploying processes to the Activiti Engine Understanding the Activiti BAR file 106 the Activiti Engine 107 5.6 5.7 6 101 101 ■ Implementing 106 Deploying processes to Testing the process with Activiti Explorer Summary 111 109 Applying advanced BPMN 2.0 and extensions 6.1 ■ 112 Using BPMN 2.0 subprocesses 113... using Activiti listeners and how to implement eventing logic in Esper to combine events into useful xxvi ABOUT THIS BOOK management information Finally, you’ll see how you can implement a simple Vaadin dashboard to monitor business processes running on the Activiti Engine In part 4, we leave behind the development of process definitions and focus on running process definitions on the Activiti Engine... Activiti with a Vaadin dashboard 359 An Activiti BAM architecture 359 Producing REST events with Activiti 360 Setting up the Vaadin application with the Esper REST service 362 Monitoring Activiti processes with a Vaadin dashboard 364 ■ ■ ■ 14.5 Summary 366 PART 4 MANAGING BPMN 2.0 PROCESSES .367 15 Managing the Activiti Engine 369 15.1 Working with the Activiti database 370 Understanding the Activiti runtime . 2. 0 PROCESSES 22 3 10 ■ Implementing advanced workflow 22 5 11 ■ Integrating services with a BPMN 2. 0 process 26 0 12 ■ Ruling the business rule engine 28 6 . Mule ESB 28 0 11.5 Summary 28 5 12 Ruling the business rule engine 28 6 12. 1 Introducing business rule management 28 7 What’s a business rule? 28 7 ■ Business