Business Process Management with Activiti

João Silva (CERN, GS-AIS)

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPMBPMN

BPM at CERN

Demo

Agenda

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPM

BPMN

BPM at CERN

Demo

Agenda

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is a business process

• Sequence of activities performed by one or more business participants in order to deliver value to the business

• Can be represented as a workflow

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Business Process as a Workflow

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Business Process Management

• BPM is a means to study, identify, change, and monitor business processes

• BPM is not about technology• BPM is not about creating diagrams• BPM is about improving business

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Business Process Management

• BPM is a means to study, identify, change, and monitor business processes

• BPM is not about technology• BPM is not about creating diagrams• BPM is about improving business

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

A pin factory Булавочная фабрика

• Adam Smith’s pin assembly process from the Wealth of Nations (1776)

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Business Process Management

• Management discipline• Software engineering

BPM as a Management Discipline

• Analysing your business processes• Documenting your business

processes• Optimizing your business processes• Make the organization more efficient

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is required for BPMAAMD

• Tools–Whiteboard–Word– Excel– Napkins!

• Process modeling– BPMN

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

BPM as a Software Engineering Discipline

• Tools to draw execution flows• Decorate diagrams with technical

details• Execute processes on a BPM platform

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is required for BPMAASED

• Runtime engine (e.g. Oracle Workflow or Activiti)– Executable process at input– Coordinates execution– Keeps track of state– Advanced state machine

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPMBPMN

BPM at CERN

Demo

Agenda

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPMN?

• Business Process Model and Notation• Graphical representation of a

business process

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Why BPMN?

• Standardized– ISO standard for process modeling

• Interchangeable– Easy to switch between IT products

• Executable– Automation improves process efficiency

and consistency

• Serializable– Can be converted to XML

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Why BPMN?

• Human-oriented– Contrast with BPEL, which is machine-

oriented

• Bridge for the gap between process design and process implementation

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

BPMN example

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

BPMN 2.0 Constructs

• Set of elements plus rules used for representing a business process model– Events– Sequence Flow– Gateway– Tasks– Sub-processes– Transactions

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Events

• Model something that happens during a lifetime of a process

• Visualized as a Circle

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Start Event

End Event Timer Event

Error Event

Gateways

• Control the flow of execution (if, else)• Visualized as a diamond shape,

with an icon inside (gateway type)

X O +Exclusive

Inclusive Parallel

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Exclusive Gateway

• Model a decision in a process• Follows a single outbound path

21st of October, 201421st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

X

Parallel Gateway

• Model concurrency in a process• Follows multiple outbound path

21st of October, 201421st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

+

Inclusive Gateway

• Combines the exclusive and parallel gateway

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

O

Tasks

• Action that occurs in a process– Send an e-mail– Call a Web Service in Java– Request work to be done by a human

• Visualized as a rounded rectangle

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

User Task

Script TaskService Task

Loop Task

Sub-processes

• Activity that contain other activities– Allows hierarchical modeling– Creates a new scope for events

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPMBPMN

BPM at CERN

Demo

Agenda

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

EDH

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Electronic Document Handling @ CERN

• Over 100 official procedures

• Used by all CERN personnel

• Over 250k documents per year

EDH

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Covers almost every procedure

Workflow in Action

Workflow in Action

Workflow in Action

Workflow in Action

********

Workflow in Action

AlreadyApproved

Workflow in Action

XML

Order

Workflow in Action

Signature Task

• Signature is a task for interacting with people, who are asked to approve or reject an electronic document

• Custom version of a BPMN User Task

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Workflow Engine

• We use Activiti, a BPMN 2.0 platform

• BPM for Business and IT people• Written in Java• Open-source

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPMBPMN

BPM at CERN

Demo

Agenda

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Simple Leave Request

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Demo

1. Draw diagram2. Create forms for users to type

information required for the process3. Export the process to XML4. Execute the process

• https://activiti.alfresco.com

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

What is BPM

BPMN

BPM at CERN

Demo

Agenda

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI

Questions?

joao.p.silva@cern.ch

21st of October, 2014 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH ACTIVITI