With the latest release of Oracle BAM 12c (12.1.3), Oracle has completely redesigned the BAM user interface (UI). This is the final post in a four part series of posts introducing this new UI.
- Part 1 – Introducing the New Oracle BAM 12c Composer
- Part 2 – Navigating Oracle BAM 12c Composer’s New “Home” Page
- Part 3 – Navigating Oracle BAM 12c Composer’s New “Administrator” Page
- Part 4 – Navigating Oracle BAM 12c Composer’s New “Designer” Page
In this post, I will give you a brief overview of the new “Designer” page and provide you with some insight into the redesign and how to navigate within the new UI.
BAM Composer Designer Page View
The Designer page loads with a Navigation Pane on the left-hand side and in the Main Section you have several options to create different types of BAM entitites for the current project. The Designer page loads the default Process Analytics project (When BPM is configured in the same domain), which you can see in the top left-hand corner of the Navigation Pane. With the Navigation Pane you have the option to add, edit/view, delete or refresh the eight types of BAM entitites using the icons at the top of the Navigation Pane..
BAM Composer Designer Entities
- Projects
- Data Objects
- Business Queries
- KPIs
- Business Views
- Dashboards
- Alerts
- Parameters
The Navigation Pane can also be collapsed to provide additional space for the main section.
Projects
With Oracle BAM 12c, Oracle has introduced a new concept of Projects. A Project is nothing more than a container for grouping the related BAM entities. Creating a project will be the first step when working with a Oracle BAM 12c Designer page. It’s also a good idea to understand that each project will be created to achieve a business monitoring goal, so you will create multiple projects depending on your number of goals. Another thing to keep in mind when adding data objects to your projects is that you can only add data objects that you have access to so you will need to work with an Administrator user to ensure you have access to all the data objects you need.
Working with Projects
In the Navigation Pane, click-on the down arrow to the right of the current opened Project will load the following menu.
As you can see from this menu you can perform several different actions from here. Open Project, Create, Delete & Rename will launch seperate dialog windows that will allow you to complete those actions. While the Security action will load a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer page. Notice that copying a Project is not an option from within the BAM Composer. However, you can export a Project, edit the names, and then import the Project back into the BAM Composer using the BAMCommands. The BAMCommands topic will not be covered in this post.
Data Objects
As their name suggest this BAM entity contains all the data to be monitored by your Project. This data could be from external databases or streams of data from ongoing business processes. In order to create any of the following BAM entities, you must first add the Data Objects to your Project. In this post I will cover how to add a Data Object to your Project . Creating and working with Data Objects will be covered in a future post.
Adding a Data Object to Your Project
From the Navigation Pane you can either click on the Data Objects node or right click on this node. Right clicking on the Data Objects node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. This may be a little misleading because you can’t actually create a Data Object from the Designer Page but this will open the Data Object dialog window.
From this dialog you can select which Data Objects you would like to add to your Project.
After adding a Data Object to your Project, you can view the Data Object by clicking on it in the Navigation Pane which will load a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. From there you have several tabs that provide you with some information about the Data Object. The most important from a Designers perspective will be the data tab. From the data tab you can view what data is currently in the Data Object.
You can also remove the Data Object from your Project by clicking on it in the Navigation Pane, closing the tab that opens in the Main Section, and finally clicking on the “X” icon in the Navigation Pane. If the Data Object tab is currently open in the Main Section, you will receive an error message.
Business Queries
With Oracle BAM 12c, Oracle has introduced the concept of Business Queries. A Business Query is the process of requesting data from a Data Object that matches defined conditions. A Business Query can be designed to request the data once, on a schedule, or continuously. In Oracle BAM 12c, you have 4 different types of Business Queries:
- Continuous Query – analysis of real time data
- Group SQL Query – analysis of one or more numeric data fields (measures), grouped by non-numeric data fields (dimensions)
- Tree Model Query – analysis of one or more numeric data fields (measures), grouped by a hierarchy of non-numeric data fields (dimensions)
- Flat SQL Query – a simple table of data fields and their values
Creating a Business Query
From the Navigation Pane you can either click on the Business Queries node or right click on this node. Right clicking on the Business Queries node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. Doing either of theses actions will launch the Business Queries dialog window.
Provide a Name, Display Name & select the Type.
After clicking on the Create button, a new tab will launch in the Main Section of the Designer Page. It’s on this tab where you will configure the Business Query. Each type of Business Query has many different configuration settings and in a future blog post I will cover the details of these settings in further detail.
Editing, Renaming, Deleting & Securing a Business Query
From the Navigation Pane right click on the Business Query you would like to edit, rename, delete or secure. In the pop up menu select the Edit, Rename, Delete or Security action. If you select the Edit action this will open the Business Query in a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Rename action, this will make the Business Query name editable so just provide a new name and press Enter. If you select the Delete action, a confirmation dialog window will be displayed. And if you selected the Security action, this will open the Business Query (Security) tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page.
Renaming a Business Query actually only changes the Display Name, the Name provided when creating the Business Query remains the same.
KPIs
With Oracle BAM 12c Oracle has introduced two types of KPIs:
- Realtime KPIs – collects data and performs incremental calculations of a measure continuously
- Scheduled KPIs – collects data and recalculates the aggregation from a specific time at a regular interval
In order to create KPIs, you must first have added a Data Object to your Project. This Data Object must contain the measures you want the KPI to analyze. Secondly, you must have created a Business Query. For Scheduled KPIs, it must be a Group SQL Query and for Realtime KPIs it must be a Continuous Query.
KPIs can be used in two ways: in a KPI Watchlist (a type of Business View) or to trigger an Alert.
Creating a KPI
From the Navigation Pane you can either click on the KPIs node or right-click on this node. Right clicking on the KPIs node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. Performing either of theses actions will launch the KPIs dialog window.
Provide a KPI Name, KPI Display Name & select the KPI Type.
After clicking on the Create button a new tab will launch in the Main Section of the Designer Page. It’s on this tab where you will configure the KPI. Each type of KPI has many different configuration settings and in a future blog post I will cover the details of these settings in further detail.
Editing, Renaming, Deleting & Securing a KPI
From the Navigation Pane, right click on the KPI you would like to edit, rename, delete or secure. In the menu select the Edit, Rename, Delete or Security action. If you select the Edit action, this will open the KPI in a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Rename action, this will make the KPI name editable so just provide a new name and press Enter. If you select the Delete action, a confirmation dialog window will be displayed. And if you selected the Security action, this will open the KPI (Security) tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page.
Renaming a KPI actually only changes the Display Name. The Name provided when creating the KPI remains the same.
Business Views
Business Views are nothing more than a visual representations of data fetched by a Business Query or KPIs. With Oracle BAM 12c there are 32 different types of Business Views, these views are organized in the following categories.
- Area
- Bar
- Horizontal Bar
- Line
- Pie
- Combo
- Table
- KPI Watchlist
- Gauge
- Scatter
- Bubble
- Treemap
In order to create Business Views you must first have added a Data Object to your Project. This Data Object must contain the measures you want the Business View to display. If you are wanting to create KPI Watchlist type of view you must have created one or more KPIs. For all other types of Business Views you must have created a Business Query in which the view will be based on.
After creating one or more Business Views they will be added to a Dashboard, which we will cover in the following topic on Dashboards.
Creating Business Views
From the Navigation Pane you can either click on the Business Views node or right click on this node. Right clicking on the Business Views node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. Performing either of these actions will launch the Business Views dialog window.
Provide a Name, Display Name, select the Category & then select the View Type.
After clicking on the Create button a new tab will launch in the Main Section of the Designer Page. It’s on this tab where you will configure the Business View. Each type of Business View has many different configuration settings and in a future blog post I will cover the details of these settings in further detail.
Editing, Renaming, Deleting & Securing Business Views
From the Navigation Pane right click on the Business View you would like to edit, rename, delete or secure. In the menu select the Edit, Rename, Delete or Security action. If you select the Edit action this will open the Business View in a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Rename action, this will make the Business View name editable so just provide a new name and press Enter. If you select the Delete action a confirmation dialog window will be displayed. And if you selected the Security action this will open the Business View (Security) tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page.
Renaming a Business View actually only changes the Display Name. The Name provided when creating the Business View will remain the same.
Dashboards
Dashboards are a collection of related Business Views. In order to display data to an end user a Business View must be included on a Dashboard. Dashboards can be configured for a point-in-time representation of the data or a real-time representation of the data. When creating a Dashboard you must select 1 of 9 different types of style templates. These templates differ by the number of views you need and how much horizontal and vertical space will be needed for each view. The space a view occupies is called a Cell and you can add, resize, clear and/or delete Cells from a Dashboard. There are also two different types of Dashboards, the normal Dashboard & a Tabbed Dashboard. A Tabbed Dashboard is a collection of other completed Dashboards.
In order to create a Dashboard, you must first have added a Data Object to your Project. This Data Object must contain the measures you want the Dashboard to display. If you want the Dashboard to contain a KPI Watchlist type of view you must have created one or more KPIs. If you want your Dashboard to prompt the user to choose values, you will need to create Parameters, which we will cover in the following topic on Parameters.
Creating a Dashboard
From the Navigation Pane you can either click on the Dashboards node or right-click on this node. Right clicking on the Dashboards node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. Either of theses actions will launch the Dashboards dialog window.
Provide a Dashboard Name, Dashboard Display Name, select the Dashboard Type & then select the Style Template.
After clicking on the Create button a new tab will launch in the Main Section of the Designer Page. It’s on this tab where you will configure the Dashboard. A Dashboard has many different configuration settings and in a future blog post I will cover the details of these settings in further detail.
Editing, Renaming, Deleting & Securing a Dashboard
From the Navigation Pane right click-on the Dashboard you would like to edit, rename, delete or secure. In the menu select the Edit, Rename, Delete or Security action. If you select the Edit action this will open the Dashboard in a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Rename action this will make the Dashboard name editable so just provide a new name and press Enter. If you select the Delete action a confirmation dialog window will be displayed. And if you selected the Security action this will open the Dashboard (Security) tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page.
Renaming a Dashboard actually only changes the Display Name. As with the other components, the Name provided when creating the Dashboard remains the same. You will also notice on this menu you have several additional actions available to you. The Open action will open the dashboard in noneditable mode. The Favorites & Start On Launch actions will affect what is shown on the BAM 12c Composer “Home” page. The Show Dashboard URL action will launch a dialog with Dashboard URL, so you can paste it into an email or anything else you would like.
Alerts
With Oracle BAM 12c an Alert can perfom one or more Actions when triggered by an Event. Alerts can also be filtered by one or more Conditions:
- Actions – can send a notification, perform a data object operation, invoke a web service, call an external method, or launch other alerts.
- Events – can be an amount of time, a specific time, a date and time, a repeating event between two dates, a change in a data object, output from a continuous query, or a manual event.
- Conditions – can restrict the Alert to an Event occurring between two times or dates or to a specific day of the week.
In order to create an Alert you must first have added a Data Object to your Project, if your Alert Event is a change to a data field or if the Alert Action is performing a data object operation. If your Alert Event is a continuous query then you must have created the query. If you are creating an Alert Event that sends a Dashboard to a User then the Dashboard must be created.
Creating an Alert
From the Navigation Pane, you can either click on the Alerts node or right-click on this node. Right clicking on the Alerts node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. Either of theses actions will launch the Alerts dialog window.
Provide a Name & a Display Name.
After clicking on the Create button a new tab will launch in the Main Section of the Designer Page. It’s on this tab where you will configure the Alert. An Alert has many different configuration settings and in a future blog post I will cover the details of these settings in further detail.
Editing, Renaming, Deleting, Securing, Activating & Deactivating an Alert
From the Navigation Pane right click on the Alert you would like to edit, rename, delete, secure, activate or deactivate. In the menu select the Edit, Rename, Delete, Security, Activate or Deactivate action. If you select the Edit action, this will open the Alert in a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Rename action, this will make the Alert name editable so just provide a new name and press Enter. If you select the Delete action, a confirmation dialog window will be displayed. And if you selected the Security action, this will open the Alert (Security) tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Activate or Deactivate action, this will turn the Alert on or off.
Renaming an Alert actually only changes the Display Name and the Name provided when creating the Alert remains the same.
Parameters
A Parameter is a variable that is used to represent a value of a data field. A Parameter can be used is several ways, including in Filters & Prompts.
- Filter – a condition that is appliced to data retrived by a Business Query or a Business View
- Prompt – a request displayed to the user so they can provide a value for a Parameter
There are two types of Parameters.
- Value Parameter – contains one value and is NOT tied to a certain data field
- List Parameter – can contain multiple values and is directly tied to a certain data field
Creating a Parameter
From the Navigation Pane you can either click on the Parameters node or right click on this node. Right clicking on the Parameters node will launch a menu and you will need to select the Create action. Either of theses actions will launch the Parameters dialog window.
Provide a Name, a Display Name, select a Data Type & select a Parameter Type.
After clicking on the Create button a new tab will launch in the Main Section of the Designer Page. It’s on this tab where you will configure the Parameter. A Parameter has many different configuration settings and in a future blog post I will cover the details of these settings in further detail.
Editing, Renaming, Deleting & Securing a Parameter
From the Navigation Pane right click on the Parameter you would like to edit, rename, delete, secure, activate or deactivate. In the menu, select the Edit, Rename, Delete, Security, Activate or Deactivate action. If you select the Edit action, this will open the Parameter in a new tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page. If you select the Rename action, this will make the Parameter name editable so just provide a new name and press Enter. If you select the Delete action, a confirmation dialog window will be displayed. And if you selected the Security action, this will open the Parameter(Security) tab in the Main Section of the Designer Page.
As with the previous examples, renaming a Parameter actually only changes the Display Name. The Name provided when creating the Parameter remains the same.
So that completes this four part series of posts about the new Oracle BAM 12c Composer. Hopefully this series has provided you with plenty of insight and knowledge about the completely redesigned UI. Even though this series covers a lot of information there is still a need for more in depth understanding to have a complete grasp of Oracle BAM 12c. Please continue to follow my blog for future posts that will deliver more in depth knowledge on each of the BAM entities.