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I have recently been looking at the latest release of the BPM Case Management feature in the Oracle BPM PS6 release. I had put together some notes to help me gain a better understanding of the context of the PS6 BPM Case Management. Hopefully, this along with the other resources will enable you to gain a clear picture of the flexibility of this feature.
Oracle
BPM PS6 release includes Case Management capability. This initial release aims
to provide:
Case Management Framework
Integration of Case Management with BPM & SOA
suite
It is
best to regard the current PS6 case management feature as a case management framework. The framework provides the building blocks for creating a case management system that is
fully integrated into Oracle BPM suite. As of the current PS6 release, no UI tooling
exists to help manage cases or the case lifecycle.
Mark Foster has written a good blog which outlines Case Management within PS6 in the following link. I wanted to provide more context on Case Management from my perspective in this blog.
PS6 Case Management - High level View
BPM PS6
includes “Case” as a first class component in a SOA Suite composite. The Case components (added to the SOA Composite) are created when a BPM process is assigned to a case in JDveloper.
The SOA
Case component is defined and configured within JDevloper, which allows us to specify the case data structures and metadata such as stakeholders, outcomes, milestones, document stores etc.
"Activities" are associated with a case, and become available to be executed via the case apis. Activities are BPM processes, Human Activities or Java call outs.
The PS6 release includes some additional database tables to store the case metadata and case instance data (data object, comments,
etc…). These new tables are created within the SOA_INFRA schema and the documents associated with that
case into a document repository that is configured with the case.
One of the main features of Case Management is the control of the case logic through case events and case business rules. A PS6 Case has an associated business rule component, which can be configured to control the availability and execution of activities within the case. The business rules component is able to act upon events that the PS6 Case Management framework generates during the lifecycle of that case. Events are fired during the lifetime of the case (e.g. Case created, activity started, activity ended, note added, document uploaded.)
Internal Case state
The
internal state of a case is represented by the diagram below. This shows the
internal states and the transition paths for a Case from one state to the next
Each
transition in state will create an event that can be enacted upon via the Case
rules engine.
The internal
case state lifecycle is defined as follows
Defining a case
A Case
is created and defined as a component of a JDeveloper BPM project. When you
create a Case as part of a BPM project, JDeveloper, creates the following
components within the SCA composite:
Case component
Case component interfaces (WSDL etc)
Case Rules component (Oracle Business Rules)
Adds the Case Component and Case Rules Component to
the BPM SOA composite
Case Configuration
The
following section gives a high level overview of the items that can be
configured for a BPM Case.
Case Activities
A Case is associated
with a set of activities that are to be performed as part of that Case. Case
activities can be:
SOA
Human Tasks
BPM
processes
Custom
Task (Java Class)
Case activities are
created from pre-existing BPM process or human tasks, which, once defined, can
be configured additionally as Case activities in JDeveloper and made available
within the lifecycle of a case.
I've described the following configurable components of a case (very!) briefly as:
Milestones
Milestones are (optional) user defined logical
milestones that can be achieved within a case.
No activities are associates with a milestone, but
milestone attainment can be programmatically set and events raised when
milestones are reached
Outcomes
User defined status of a completed
case. An event is fired when an outcome is attained.
Case
Data
Defines the data that will be stored
with a case
XML schemas define the data that is
stored with the case.
Case
Documents
Defines the location of documents
that are attached to a case (e.g. WebCenter Content)
User
Defined Events
Optional user defined events that
can be fired or captured to drive case processing rules
Stakeholders
Defines the actors who can
participate in the case (roles, users, groups)
Defines permissions for individual
case permissions (read case, create document etc…)
Business Rules
Business rules are the main
component controlling the flow of a Case
Each case has an associated business
ruleset
Rules are fired on receiving Case
events (or User defined events)
Life
cycle events
Milestone
events
Activity
events
Data
events
Document
events
Comment
events
User
event
Managing the Case
Managing
the lifecycle of a case is achieved in two ways:
Managing case logic with Business Rules
Managing the case lifecycle via the Case APIs.
A BPM
Case can be viewed as a set of case data & documents along with the
activities that can be performed within a case and also the case lifecycle
state expressed as milestones and internal lifecycle state.
The
management of the case life is achieved though both the configuration of
business rules and the “manual” interaction with a case instance through the Case
APIs.
Business Rules and Case Events
A key
component within the Case management framework is the event model. The BPM Case
Management solution internally utilizes Oracle EDN (Event Delivery Network) to publish and
subscribe to events generated by the Case framework.
Events
are generated by the Case framework on each of the processes and stages that a
case instance will travel on its lifetime. The following case events are part
of the BPM Case:
Life
cycle events
Milestone
events
Activity
events
Data
events
Document
events
Comment
events
User
event
The
Case business rules are configured to listen for these events, and business
logic can be coded into the Case rules component to enact upon an event being
received.
Case API & Interaction
Along
with the business rules component, Cases can be managed via the Case API
interfaces. These interfaces allow for the building of custom applications to
integrate into case management framework. The API’s allow for updating case
comments & documents, executing case activities, updating milestones etc.
As
there is no in built case management UI functions within the PS6 release, Cases
need to be managed via a custom built UI, interacting with selected case
instances, launching case activities, closing cases etc. (There is expected to
be a UI component within subsequent releases)
Logical Case Flow
The
diagram below is intended to depict a logical view of the case steps for a
typical case.
A UI or other service calls the Case interface to
create a Case instance
The case instance is created & database data
inserted
A lifecycle event is raised indicating a case
activity (created) event
The case business rules capture the event and decide
on an action to take
Additionally other parties can subscribe to Case
events via EDN
The business rules may handle the event, e.g.
configured to execute a case activity on case creation event
The BPM/Human Workflow/Custom activity is executed
A case activity event is raised on the execute
activity
A case work UI or business service can inspect the
case instance and call other actions to progress that case, such as:
Execute activity
Add Note
Add document
Add case data
Update Milestone
Raise user defined event
Suspend case
Resume case
Close Case
Summary
Having had a little time to play around with the APIs and the case configuration, I really like the flexibility and power of combining Oracle Business Rules and the BPM Case Management event model. Creating something this flexible and powerful without BPM Case Management would take a lot of time and effort. This is hopefully going to save my customers a lot of time and effort!
I may make amendments to this post as my understanding of Case Management increases!
Take a look at the following links for official documentation etc.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E28280_01/doc.1111/e15176/case_mgmt_bpmpd.htm
https://blogs.oracle.com/bpm/entry/just_in_case
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