Bruce Silver Associates Industry Trend Reports - Oracle

Bruce Silver Associates Industry Trend Reports Independent Expertise in BPM February 2013

BPMS Watch www.brsilver.com Bruce Silver 1216 New York Drive, Altadena CA 91001 USA Tel: +1 831.685.8803 E-mail: [email protected]

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For years, the challenge for BPM Suite vendors has been how to match BPMôs ñbusiness-

drivenò promise to the technical complexity of automating core business processes. At one

time, business-driven meant process analysts working with the business to create process

and use case models as ñbusiness requirementsò that would handed off to developers for

implementation. For todayôs BPM market, business-driven demands more. It means

empowerment of process analysts and business users themselves to directly participate in the

implementation. That requires a new generation of tools, not just for process authoring but

for management at runtime, tools designed for business users. Of course, programmers and

traditional IDEs continue to play a vital role in BPM. But implementation would be faster,

less costly, and a better match to user expectations if process analysts and end users could do

some of that implementation themselves, including design of process flows, task forms, data

models, and decision logic, or optimize process performance through simulation analysis.

The latest release of Oracle BPM Suite 11g version 11.1.1.7 embraces this challenge. A

centerpiece of the new version is enhancement of the Business Process Composer, a

browser-based tool for process analysts and business users that bridges the divide between

modeling and executable design. Process Composer in the new release adds features for

team collaboration and versioning, form design, simulation analysis and process playback,

definition of business objects, and decision modeling.

Another key element is case management, in which tasks are determined dynamically based

on case context, using events, rules and process logic defined in Composer in combination

with ad-hoc user actions at runtime. A case is now a first-class component in Oracle BPM

11g, with its own model of case activities, events, stakeholders, and permissions separate

from those embedded in a BPM process, as well as its own Process Space for the case

folder..

This report examines Oracle BPM Suite 11g 11.1.1.7, explains its position and

differentiation in the BPMS landscape, and takes a closer look at the new capabilities of the

latest version. Weôll focus on its new features that empower business users, both at design

time and runtime, and just touch on the developer-oriented tooling and runtime stack that

have made Oracle BPMôs world-class reputation in the past.

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Oracle BPM Suite 11g, part of Oracle Fusion Middleware, combines business-driven design

and rich human-centric BPM with Oracleôs well-known strengths in robust integration

middleware. When BPM 11g was first launched in 2010, it was the first BPM Suite to take

advantage of BPMN 2.0 as an executable process design standard, while rivals like IBM and

SAP still had a split personality ï BPMN for human-centric processes and BPEL for

integration-centric. That gap has diminished somewhat today, but Oracleôs ñunified and

completeò message still remains a differentiator in another aspect, as a single platform

supporting both conventional BPM and case management. Oracle maintains that you

â Bruce Silver Associates 2013 2

shouldnôt have to buy two different platforms to do structured and unstructured processesé

and I basically agree.

The new release retains the original BPM 11g architecture (Figure 1), which combines two

formerly distinct BPM offerings ï one based on BPMN (deriving from Fuego via BEA) and

the other on BPEL (deriving from Collaxa) ï in a powerful unified design and runtime

platform. Today, BPEL is mostly confined to the Oracle SOA Suite, the Fusion Middleware

component providing the underlying integration middleware, while the end-to-end BPM is

BPMN-based.

BPM 11g provides two alternative authoring environments: BPM Studio, a desktop IDE

based on JDeveloper and oriented to Java programmers, and Process Composer, a browser-

based environment oriented to process analysts and business users. Process Composer has

been enhanced to handle several aspects of implementation design formerly requiring

Studio, including definition of business objects, decision models, and task forms.

Figure 1. Oracle BPM 11g architecture. Source: Oracle

The Oracle BPM runtime is based on WebLogic Server, with system monitoring and

management through Oracle Enterprise Manager. In addition to the process engine, the

runtime includes the Oracle Rules Engine and a separate Human Workflow Engine.

Maintaining decision logic separate from process logic increases business agility by letting

business analysts modify the logic without requiring developer assistance or interrupting

business processes. The human workflow service provides task routing to users or roles,

deadlines and escalations, task forms, and similar workflow features.

End user experience is handled through a combination of the Oracle BPM Workspace and

BPM Process Spaces. The BPM Workspace lets users view running process instances, work

on tasks, and monitor performance dashboards. Process Spaces is a collaborative workspace

built on top of Oracle WebCenter Spaces and adds team collaboration features for BPM

users.


WYDIWYE: What You Draw is What You Execute

When it was first launched in 2010, Oracle BPM Suite 11g was the first BPMS based on

executable BPMN 2.0, a choice that other middleware-oriented BPMS vendors have since

begun to imitate. The advantage of this is true model-driven process execution, sometimes

called WYDIWYE ï What You Draw Is What You Execute. WYDIWYE stands in contrast to

BPMN that just serves as a blueprint or business requirements for implementation in some

other process language, such as BPEL or Java. Today, the war is over. For BPM at least,

WYDIWYE, Oracleôs approach, has won.

But that doesnôt necessarily mean that the BPMN created by the process analyst is the

BPMN used in the executable implementation. Model sharing between analyst and

developer normally requires the analyst and developer to share a common IDE, usually with

the analyst using a simplified ñanalyst mode.ò In fact, when BPM 11g first came out, that is

how it worked, and that approach still worksé up to a point. But to be really ñbusiness-

drivenò, BPM implementation should not require process analysts and business users to use

a programmer IDE, and that is the big advantage of Oracle BPM Suite 11g. It lets business

users go from modeling to execution using Process Composer.

Process Composer is browser-based, not a heavyweight desktop IDE, with a more business-

friendly interface. Unlike the browser-based business-oriented process modeling

environments from, say, IBM or SAP, Process Composer shares the same repository of

design artifacts used by developers in BPM Studio. In other words, Composer artifacts are

not simply business requirements but part of the actual implementation. The familiar

mismatch between business requirements and executable implementation ï the notorious

ñroundtrippingò problem ï is greatly reduced.

In terms of BPMN 2.0 support, Oracle was not only first out of the gate but remains ahead of

its major BPMS competitors today. For example, most BPM Suites completely omit

message flows in their BPMN models, the dashed lines representing interactions between the

process and external entities and processes. Oracle does not. For example (Figure 2),

Oracle uses message flows to show in the diagram where one process can trigger another

one or invoke a service, with drilldown to the message details.

Oracle BPM also excels in its support for the most important BPMN events: Message (point-

to-point inter-process communications), Error (propagation of exceptions from child to

parent process levels), Timer (deadline-triggered behavior), and Signal (general purpose

publish-subscribe integration). When drawn on the boundary of an activity, these events

signify that if the event trigger occurs while the activity is running, the process will initiate

the exception flow drawn out of the boundary event. If the activity completes without the

event trigger, then the exception flow is ignored. Such boundary events can be used, for

example, to describe what happens when the customer changes an order in flight, or when an

activity takes too long, or when a service returns an exception (Figure 3). While competitors

ignore certain event-triggered behaviors or hide them behind custom Javascript, Oracle BPM

11g follows the WYDIWYE paradigm for both exception handling and inter-process

communications and makes the behavior visible in the process diagram.


Figure 2. Oracle supports BPMN collaboration diagrams depicting message flows between

pools. Source: Oracle

Figure 3. Oracle supports all the important BPMN event types for exception handling. Source:

Oracle

Another aspect of Oracleôs BPMN implementation that is a bit different from the norm is the

modeling of human tasks and workflow. Notice in Figure 1 that the Human Workflow

Engine separate from the BPMN process engine. Following an idea that originated in the

BPEL4People standard, a single human task in Oracleôs BPMN process model may be

implemented as a complex human workflow, such as an approval chain involving multiple

actors. The advantages of this are more flexible assignment of the actors, based on

declarative rules, and a common workflow paradigm shared with Oracle applications.


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The browser-based Process Composer is the centerpiece of Oracleôs business-driven

implementation effort in 11.1.1.7. In Composer, process analysts and business users can

create BPM projects based on project templates. Each project template exposes a business

catalog of process components shared with developers using Oracle BPM Studio via the

Oracle Metadata Store (MDS). Composer lets business users assemble these components,

whether created by themselves or by developers in Studio, in executable process solutions.

In other words, they can go from model to execution and deployment directly from

Composer. Business users can also create projects not based on a template.

Collaborative Project Workspace

Each project in Composer has its own project workspace (Figure 4), with team collaboration

features including management of project roles, shared editing of processes, human tasks,

business rules, and other project components, snapshot versioning and change history of all

project objects, and project approval workflows.

Figure 4. Project workspace in Process Composer. Source: Oracle

Process Modeling

Process Composer includes a full BPMN 2.0 editor (Figure 5), and allows business users to

review and comment on process models created by others (Figure 6).


Figure 5. Browser-based BPMN 2.0 editor in Composer. Source: Oracle

Figure 6. Specifying business requirements for process implementation through Composer.

Source: Oracle

Simulation

New in 11.1.1.7 is the ability to perform simulation analysis inside Composer. (In previous

versions, this required BPM Studio.) Simulation lets you project changes in operational

performance metrics such as process cost and cycle time by assigning estimated resource

costs and activity durations to the process model (Figure 7).


Figure 7. Simulation parameter definition in Process Composer. Source: Oracle

Based on those parameters, for a given scenario of staffing levels and process instance

volumes, simulation projects end-to-end performance and identifies bottlenecks that could

occur (Figure 8). Simulation in interactive, and can combine estimated parameters with real

runtime data.

Figure 8. Simulation analysis inside Composer. Source: Oracle

Activity Guides Oracle BPM supports ñguided business processesò that help task performers complete and

manage their work more easily and with less training. Activity Guides defined in Process


Composer (Figure 9) define milestones, each a set of tasks that the process participant must

complete.

Figure 9. Activity Guide definition in Composer. Source: Oracle

Figure 10 shows how an Activity Guide is presented to participants for an employee

onboarding process, a more business-friendly presentation for many human-centric

processes. Developers can customize the presentation using ADF.

Figure 10. Activity guide for employee onboarding process. Source: Oracle

Task Forms

One of the most significant enhancements in the new release is the ability to design task

forms in Composer (Figure 11). Previously, this required definition of ADF forms in BPM

Studio, in some cases a barrier to business-driven implementation. Now process analysts

can design and preview web forms themselves in Composer. Developers can further enrich

the behavior of Composer web forms through scripting.


Figure 11. Composer Form Editor. Source: Oracle

Process Player

Another significant addition to Composer in 11.1.1.7 is the Process Player (Figure 12). It

allows the process analyst to step through the process one activity at a time, play the role of

the assigned task performer, display the task form, and interact with it via fields and buttons.

Playback of process models to stakeholders in the business allows immediate feedback,

leading to shorter implementation cycles, shorter training times, and increased user

acceptance. Processes do not need to have implementation details defined in order to use the

Player. Playback of these draft mode models lets business users visualize the flow of work

prior to implementation and facilitates iterative process discovery.

Figure 12. Process Player in Composer. Source: Oracle

Business Rules

Business rules let organizations encapsulate business decision logic in reusable components

defined outside of the processes that use them. Most BPMSs force process designers to

choose between very simple rules defined within the BPMS design environment and third-


party Business Rule Management Suites that must be integrated with the BPMS. Oracle

stands out by bundling and integrating a full-featured BRMS, Oracle Business Rules, within

the BPMS tooling, accessible from Composer or BPM Studio.

A dictionary is an Oracle Business Rules container for all the components of decision logic,

an XML file that stores the rulesets and the data model. Dictionaries are created in Oracle

JDeveloper and can be viewed and edited in Process Composer. The Composer Business

Rules Editor (Figure 13) supports both IF/THEN rules and Decision Tables. Each condition

row in a Decision Table tests the allowed values of a data input to the ruleset, called a fact.

Each column represents a particular bucketset, an enumerated fact value or range. The

combination of all the condition tests in a column specifies an action, typically setting the

value of a data output. The complete Decision Table defines a ruleset, deployed as a

business rule component invoked from the process as a Business Rule task in BPMN. The

editor provides quick tools for resolving gaps and conflicts in the table.

Figure 13. Business Rules Editor in Process Composer. Source: Oracle

Business rules can be used to simplify complex routing logic at gateways, detailed task

assignment and workflow, and dynamic service selection. The combination of a powerful

business-friendly rule designer with direct integration to BPMN process models is another

reason Oracle BPM 11g stands out from the BPMS pack.

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Oracle has made significant efforts in 11.1.1.7 to increase the flexibility of the BPM end

user experience, both in the process portal or workspace, and in handling assigned workflow

tasks.

Workspace Enhancements

Out of the box, Oracle BPM provides the Business Process Workspace, a customizable form

of a typical BPM end user worklist (Figure 14). In addition, Oracle BPM Suite 11g offers an

enhanced Web 2.0-based social collaboration environment called Process Spaces.


Figure 14. Business Process Workspace. Source: Oracle

Process Spaces is part of Oracle WebCenter Spaces, a role-based runtime environment built

on Oracle WebCenter Framework and Application Development Framework (ADF). Each

Process Space is a user-configurable container for a variety of widgets combining team

collaboration with process information, including calendars, discussions, documents, tasks,

an activity stream, wikis, process audit trail, and more (Figure 15, Figure 16). They are the

cornerstone of what Oracle calls Social BPM, fit-for-purpose collaboration environments

leveraging Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technology that place process tasks and dashboards in

a social context.

Figure 15. Process Spaces built on Oracle WebCenter are user-configurable Web 2.0 mashups

of BPM, team collaboration, and other components. Source: Oracle


Figure 16. Process Spaces. Source: Oracle

Views (Figure 17), introduced in 11.1.1.7, represent end user-configurable worklists instead

of the standard Inbox view. Users define their own sort, filter, and display criteria in both

personal and shared views. Worklist widgets can be bound to any selected view.

Figure 17. User View configuration. Source: Oracle

Rich Human Interaction

BPM Studio supports definition of richly interactive human task user interfaces using the

Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) and configured using wizards as Java

Server Page XML (.jspx) files. ADF is a declarative framework based on industry standard


Java Server Faces (JSF). It includes a rich set of interactive components, a zero-code

WYSIWYG designer, and wizards for generation of task user interfaces linked to BPM.

Figure 18. ADF Task Flow. Source: Oracle

ADF implements the Model View Controller pattern, separating the data from its

presentation to users. The Model defines the link between the underlying business services

that provide access to both BPM and external data sources and the View, that is, the forms.

ADF task flows (Figure 18) define the screenflow logic implemented by the Controller ï

how a BPM end user clicking a button on a page in a Human Task UI interacts with some

data, which is then presented on some other page.

Figure 19. ADF task UI supports rich human interaction. Source: Oracle

In this way, ADF can abstract any back-end data source as a data control and mash it up with

BPM data to create a richly interactive end user experience for BPM users. Custom task

forms support tabbed interfaces including process data, charts and graphs, and action buttons

linked to the process model (Figure 19). ADF also includes data visualization components

supporting a wide variety of charts and graphs, Gantt charts, map viewers, and hierarchy

viewers that can be used to enhance the BPM UI.


Oracle BPM Suite 11g also supports rendering of web forms, ADF Forms and BPM

Workspace in mobile browsers (Figure 20).

Figure 20. BPM Workspace in iPad. Source: Oracle

Figure 21. Rule-based delegation, reassignment, or automated handling. Source: Oracle

Flexible Process Management

The new release of Oracle BPM Suite 11g provides enhanced process management

flexibility for process participants, owners, and administrators. Through Preferences

configured in a participantôs workspace, User Rules can automatically reassign, delegate, or

approve/reject work items meeting specific criteria, such as arriving while the user is on

vacation (Figure 21). The rule conditions can select instances based on due dates, specific


tasks, or certain values of process data. Rules can also be used to specify notification

channels based on conditions (Figure 22). By tailoring participation to each userôs needs,

rules such as these can greatly improve the effectiveness of process automation.

Figure 22. Rule-based notifications. Source: Oracle

Figure 23. Owner view. Source: Oracle

Supervisors and process owners often need to search for specific instances of a running

process for special handling. Owner views (Figure 23) allow search based on multiple


conditions and ad-hoc actions on the retrieved instance, such as altering its data or flow, all

supported by an audit trail.

Figure 24. Ad-hoc insertion of a new task in human workflow. Source: Oracle

Ad-hoc processing is also possible in the steps managed by the Human Workflow Service

(Figure 24). An assigned task performer can reassign or delegate a task instance at runtime,

and new approvers may be inserted into the chain at runtime.

Figure 25. Instance patching and revisioning. Source: Oracle

In addition, Oracle BPM now supports instance patching and instance revisioning (Figure

25). Instance patching migrates all running instances of a process to a new version, on the

fly. Instance revisioning deploys a new process version and migrates selected in-flight


instances. An Oracle tool reports which instances can be migrated safely without manual

intervention.

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The term case management, sometimes called dynamic case management or adaptive case

management, refers to business processes that are unstructured in the sense of lacking

predefined activity flow models such as BPMN provides. Case activities are instead defined

independently and related to each other by rules, events, and ad-hoc user actions. Unlike

some of its competitors, Oracle offers case management as part of the BPM11g 11.1.1.7

product, not as a separate product. After all, many of the concepts and components used in

regular BPM ï event-triggered behaviors, business rules, activities, and milestones, for

example ï apply in case management as well. The difference is that in case management,

the tasks available to be performed are determined dynamically based on the case context.

Other aspects of case management, such as strong integration with content management,

BAM and case analytics, are already supported by BPM.

A major difference between case management and regular BPM is that case activities,

events, stakeholders, and permissions are related to each other by a different type of logic. A

case progresses through various milestones by a combination of activities, events, and rules.

Figure 26 illustrates editors for specifying the properties for a case (milestones, outcomes,

permissions, etc.) and for a case activity (availability, inputs, outputs).

Figure 26. Editors for defining Case and Case Activity properties. Source: Oracle

Instead of interacting with a the small bit of process information exposed by a particular task

form in regular BPM, case management users typically access all information related to the


case via an electronic case folder. Oracle implements the case folder as a Case Space, for

which the Process Spaces interface works well (Figure 27). Alternatively, case activities can

be presented to users through an Activity Guide, such as used in regular BPM (Figure 10).

Since all users can access the same shared case folder or Space, case management requires a

finer-grained permissions model than regular BPM. For that, Oracle links Security tags to

sets of security policies, granting user permissions to case objects associated with those tags.

Figure 27. Case Space in Oracle Process Spaces. Source: Oracle

Case information often takes the form of documents rather than fields in a form, and those

documents must be indexed and managed even after the case is closed. That requires tight

integration between case management and a content management repository. Oracle BPM

provides that, integrating not only with Oracle Content Server but with any third-party

content repository supporting the CMIS standard.

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Oracle BPM captures performance data for purposes ranging from basic operational

monitoring to strategic process intelligence (Figure 28). It aggregates process events into

performance measures, which can be sliced and diced by various dimensions. In addition to

the predefined measures, process analysts can define custom measures using business

indicators, a special type of process variable supporting dimensional analysis. Oracle BPM

provides a set of pre-defined cubes, database structures that let you break out aggregated

measures in real time by various dimensions. Oracle BPM calls this Process Analytics and

supports it in various ways.


Figure 28. Spectrum of Process Analytics. Source: Oracle

For operational monitoring, the standard BPM Workspace Dashboards provide out-of-the-

box charts of workload and performance by process and participant, with drilldown from

process to its activities, and from participant to processes (Figure 29). You can drill down to

individual instances as well. The instance drilldown shows an audit trail (both tabular and

graphical) of the execution path.

Figure 29. Operational Monitoring dashboard in BPM Workspace. Source: Oracle

In addition, Oracle BAM (Figure 30) provides real-time monitoring in tailored reports that

support management by exception and alert-triggered actions. It continuously tracks key

performance indicators and service level agreements, correlating process events and

conditions, and identifying trends as they emerge. Event-triggered alerts and automated

actions allow users to react quickly in response to exception conditions.


Figure 30. Oracle BAM. Source: Oracle

For true process intelligence, Oracle BPM integrates with Oracle Business Intelligence

(OBIEE). The process model in combination with the BPM STAR schema can be mapped

to the BI model to create process-aware BI dashboards (Figure 31).

Figure 31. Process-aware BI. Source: Oracle

Oracle Real-Time Decision (RTD) software adds predictive analytics and business

intelligence to business logic. An automated self-learning system, Oracle RTD attempts to

make the best possible decision at the current moment based on data and situational context,

and uses data to discover insights that continually improve decisions over time. It combines

software and expertise to automate and improve decision-making within critical business

systems, continuously updating itself based on new data and optimizing its

recommendations. For example, in product promotional offers, it provides situational

awareness that correlates attributes such as customer demographics, location, income, and

purchase history, and can learn from previous outcomes, such as the most favorable time of

day.

Finally, Oracle Event Processing (OEP) provides complex event processing, correlating

business events and generating triggered actions based on defined patterns and rules. These

events can be generated by both processes and external sources.

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Bruce Silver Associates Industry Trend Reports - Oracle