How Task Flow Registration for Human Tasks Works
Using a Database Driven List of Values to Populate a BPM Variable
(This is an excerpt from Lesson 14 "Oracle BPM and ADF (Part 2)" from Avio Consulting's new self-paced online Oracle BPM Developer Workshop training.)
The purpose of this post is to show how to populate an ADF form field's dropdown with values from a database table. Once an item in the list of values (LOV) is selected from the dropdown, this shows to have the selected item automatically populate a BPM process's data object variable.
Using a BPM Process Variable on an ADF form to Retrieve Database Information
ADF projects used in BPM applications are often a mix of BPM process variables as well as ADF view object data control attributes. This is necessary on Oracle BPM projects because the BPM process might only store only an ID and the ADF forms might subsequently use the ID to extract the detailed information from the database for the end user to view on the ADF form.
BPEL Date & Duration Manipulation
Dates are a common type seen in XML documents. Many times when working on a project, the schema will use a date field but have it set to a string type. When a date comes into the process as a string, the representation is not standardized and can come in a variety of formats. In order to perform date manipulation like checking the time since a date or adding duration to a date the string should be converted to a date. The following are a set of examples that illustrate manipulation of a date field used in XLST.
String to Date Conversion
Gathering BPM Business Requirements Using Screen Capture Software
This blog highlights the reasons why a Business Analyst would use screen recording software, such as Camtasia, when gathering business requirements for projects using an Agile development approach for an implementation of Oracle Fusion Middleware (FMW) such as Business Process Management (BPM), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and WebCenter Content.
XSLT Julian to Calendar
While on an 11g BPEL implementation, I had a fairly simple request to convert a date format from Julian to calendar. I shrugged off the request as simple, and thought it shouldn't take more than a few minutes. I was entertained by the fact that you can convert a date to Julian, but nothing was provided, unless I missed it, to convert a date from Julian!
Not that Julian is used very often, but when it is, most of the time it needs to be converted to calendar date for better recognition.
Highway to the Danger Zone
Just like Top Gun’s Maverick and Goose shrieking into harm’s way in an F14 Tomcat, our lives as developers are always lived on the razor’s edge of speed and utter perfection.
Creating a Custom Knowledge Module (KM) in ODI 11g
In my previous blog, I showed how to do an ELT from Oracle DB to XML in ODI. Every ELT uses a Loading Knowledge Module (LKM), which describes how the data is loaded from one system to another, and an Integration Knowledge Module (IKM), which describes how the data is integrated in the target system. These Knowledge Modules are fully extensible and can be edited from within ODI Studio.
Updating BPM 11g XML Payload From ADF
Oracle BPM 11g (or BPEL) uses XML to pass along process payload information. To modify this information in a UI, BPM data controls are typically used to update this data from the ADF user interface. This is a well known technique and easy to do. These data controls can be generated from the human task UI wizard or through the new gallery's "ADF Task Flow Based on Human Task", Figure 1. So long as the UI uses the BPM's data controls, all is well.
Figure 1. Creating Task Flow from BPM Human Task
Avio 2011 Holiday Party
As 2011 comes to a close, we were fortunate to have a large number of the Avio team together for a night of celebration. With some of the team geographically dispursed most of the year, it is always nice to have as many people as possible in one place to reflect on the year and enjoy an evening of fine food. We also took the opportunity to raise a glass to thank all of our clients who made this year possible. Here's to a wonderful 2011 and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012 for everyone.
Happy holidays from Avio!
