Is jBPM what I need?

Question

Hello all fellow forum users,

I have a question to you. We have some kind of complex project here which will needs to have a workflow process also where the user can put these kind of functionalities into the flow

• custom made java code which will process data for example but we need that data later in other processes either
• the need for split processes, which under I mean that I want to run some processes asynchronously next to each other
• Also synchronizing points
• decision points: based on some output of the previous process (just exit code OR maybe I would do some interface which we will implement to have some checks on complex data, etc) we need to have a functionality to decide where to continue
• maybe some other things i forgot here now

We will have a complex GUI for things and also we have to put the workflow designer into our application. My questions then:

1. Would jBPM support things I sketched up above?
2. If nearly all the things can be done with jBPM totally, can we somehow embed a designer into our application?
3. If 1. or 2. is not really the case, is there a way to programatically customize jBPM interface and so on? I did not really find tutorials how to use the jBPM programatically

Thank you for your answers!

Rattlebrained

Answer 1

I think that jBPM5 fits perfectly for your use case. If you are a Java Developer, jBPM5 will allow you to do almost everything in a programatic way. If you want to model and design a complex scenario you can use the power of business processes in jBPM5 and Drools for the business logic side of your application making things more declarative and easy to understand. As Andrey mention you can embed the web designer in your application. Cheers

Dorsey

Answer 2

Look at

• Bonita Open Solution (http://www.bonitasoft.com/)
• Activiti (http://www.activiti.org/)
• JBoss Drools (http://www.jboss.org/drools) and jBPM (http://www.jboss.org/jbpm)
• Process Maker (http://www.processmaker.com/)

Photoluminescence

Answer 3

jBPM is focuses on BPMN, which is a graphical modelling notation for business process. On the other hand you can model business processes using BPEL (business process execution language).

BPEL is the de-facto standard for modeling executable Web services orchestrations. It is an XML-based language used for the definition and execution of business, as well as scientific work flows using Web services. WSO2 Business Process Server (WSO2 BPS) and Apache Orchestration Director Engine(ODE) are two WS-BPEL compliant business process executable work-flow engines, which support composition of Web services by orchestrating service interactions.

You can model business processes with asynchronous/synchronous external interractions. Also the WS-BPEL specification supports your requirements you have mentioned and as well it provides some essential features for real-world business processes like compensation handling, fault handling etc. You can use WSO2 Carbon Studio BPEL editor as the workflow editor which is provide functionality to model business processes with WS-BPEL 2.0 and BPEL4WS 1.1 easily.

Regards,
Denis Weerasiri

Ahoy

Answer 4

Quickly going through jBPM documentation the answers are the following:

• For custom Java code you can either use Script Task or create e.g. a web service and use Service Task to call it.
• For splitting processes you can use Diverging Gateway with AND type.
• For joining back - Converging Gateway with AND type.
• Decision points can be implemented using Diverging Gateway with OR type and applying Constraints to it.
• As to the designer, jBPM has a web-based designer which is based on open source project. You can either derive that source code and apply it to the needs of your application or try use some kind of iframe integration.

Flaky