ActiveWorkflow Overview

Transcription

1 Table of contents 1 Introduction Product Suite ActiveWorkflow Engine ActiveWorkflow Designer ActiveWorkflow Portal... 5

2 1. Introduction The purpose of this guide is to: Introduce the features of the ActiveWorkflow technology that are frequently requested by users. Provide step-by-step instructions of how to use ActiveWorkflow to automate business processes. Provide a reference guide to assist users in the design and implementation of automated business processes. ActiveWorkflow Concept Business process management systems like ActiveWorkflow offer the possibility to define, Page 2

3 automate, monitor, audit, and control business operations by leveraging the Web, middleware, and standards to more efficiently and effectively manage by process. ActiveWorkflow provides the tools to rapidly integrate sophisticated process management into business operations and applications. 2. Product Suite Unify's ActiveWorkflow is a suite of products that work together to model, automate, integrate and streamline business processes, providing a platform for more efficient and productive business. This section describes the ActiveWorkflow Product Suite, consisting of four primary components: ActiveWorkflow Engine ActiveWorkflow Designer ActiveWorkflow Portal 2.1. ActiveWorkflow Engine The ActiveWorkflow Engine is a high-performance J2EE-based process engine for rapid deployment and flexible enactment of workflow or process integration applications. The ActiveWorkflow Engine can be programmed entirely from ActiveWorkflow Designer, or ActiveWorkflow services can be leveraged by the EJB/Servlet developer as a process layer, embedded within an application. This multi-platform, application Engine neutral J2EE-based process engine is central to the ActiveWorkflow Product Suite. Developers and system administrators can quickly deploy the ActiveWorkflow Engine to their J2EE application Engine. ActiveWorkflow has been verified with BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, and JBoss for rapid deployment of tightly integrated workflow or process integration applications on virtually any operating system, hardware platform, or environment. For customers who do not already have an Application Engine, ActiveWorkflow comes bundled with the JBoss Application Engine for one-click deployment of the entire platform for any operating system or hardware platform for which the Sun Java SDK (version 1.4.1_02 or higher) is available. Page 3

4 ActiveWorkflow Architecture ActiveWorkflow Engine integrates seamlessly with existing J2EE applications. This makes ActiveWorkflow the best choice for J2EE application developers who want to leverage a process layer for abstraction of business processes with their environment, providing the flexibility to quickly modify applications according to business demands. This process layer can be integrated with any number of existing applications and solutions, including CRM, manufacturing, Web Services, workflow, and so on. Once installed and configured, the ActiveWorkflow Engine generally requires no additional configuration or action by business users ActiveWorkflow Designer ActiveWorkflow Designer is a user-friendly, graphical, business process-modeling tool that is ideal for the rapid development of complex process definitions. This tool gives application developers an easy way to build, organize, and reorganize the complex business processes that lay at the heart of their workflow or process integration application. ActiveWorkflow Designer increases application developer productivity by giving them the power to quickly build and deploy process intensive systems using point and click process authoring and powerful scripting language-based programming capabilities. Once the ActiveWorkflow Engine is deployed, the ActiveWorkflow Designer tool can be used to quickly build a process map that accurately reflects the business logic of the application at hand. ActiveWorkflow Designer is a Java application, also requiring the Sun Java SDK (version 1.4.1_02 or higher) runtime. ActiveWorkflow can handle arbitrarily Page 4

5 complex business or application process logic, as well as all known workflow and process modeling patterns. The process designer can use the ActiveWorkflow Designer features that provide both point and click process authoring, and more powerful scripting language programming capabilities. This enables automation of the most sophisticated business processes. Process Definitions from ActiveWorkflow Designer are represented in XML, which can be uploaded to the ActiveWorkflow Engine for immediate execution. Business rules for processes are defined and implemented in ActiveWorkflow Designer. Activities are displayed graphically as well as in the familiar tree-view in ActiveWorkflow Designer. Easy to use dialog boxes capture the Process Definition and create the XML templates that ActiveWorkflow Engine uses to run the Processes and display information to Users through the ActiveWorkflow Admin application. ActiveWorkflow Designer provides the flexibility to write scripted actions in preferred scripting languages, including but not limited to JavaScript, Tcl, Python or Netrexx. Scripts within the process can perform arbitrarily complex programmed actions, such as accessing a legacy database, executing an operating system program like running a CRM report, or sending a wireless notification (WAP). The scripts can also refer to Operands stored in ActiveWorkflow to add, change, delete, or update specific Processes during execution (for example, updating a Process with the completion date and time of a Subprocess) ActiveWorkflow Portal ActiveWorkflow Portal is a complete JSP/Servlet framework for rapid development of sophisticated web based user interfaces to workflow applications, as portlets in existing ActiveWorkflow Admin interfaces or for use with existing web-based systems for seamless integration with the applications. ActiveWorkflow ships with an example ActiveWorkflow Admin application called Active Checklist that is suitable for implementation as a web interface for workflow applications developed using ActiveWorkflow. Process participants, process owners, managers, and process administrators can interact with ActiveWorkflow during a business process from either the web based applications they're already familiar with, or using the ActiveWorkflow Portal application called Active Checklist. The ActiveWorkflow Portal Framework provides the Task User Interface (TUI) for the ActiveWorkflow Engine. It can be modified, used as is, or ActiveWorkflow can use a ActiveWorkflow Admin developed in-house, using the Java, XML, or SOAP interfaces. End users can effectively manage work assigned to them and coordinate automated or combined manual-automated tasks using this web-based system. Page 5