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Application Developer's Guide
Introducing Business Process Server application development : Outlining Business Process Server application requirements
 

Outlining Business Process Server application requirements

Before you begin developing a Business Process Server application, you must first collect the requirements for the application from users and managers. Once collected, your next step is to analyze this information to design the existing business processes. Only then can you proceed to translate the user requirements into a process flow and information flow using BPM Designer and Business Process Portal.
Application requirements vary from one application to another. However, most have multiple elements and features in common, as described in the following table.
Table 3. Application development requirements
Requirements
Application developer’s tasks
Designing the process flow of the application
Define the process. Define one or more subprocesses, when applicable.
Developing the information flow of the application
Define the input and output data required for each workstep.Define the data transfers between the worksteps.Define the information required to execute a workstep.
Identifying the performer(s) for a specific task
Determine the performer for each workstep type.
For example, the performer of an Activity workstep could be an individual, a list of individuals, a group or a queue; for an Adapter workstep, the performer is an external application; for a Subprocess workstep, the performer is a process.
Defining the look and feel of each Activity workstep
Determine the interface for the workstep In BP Server applications. Interface options include:
*Auto generated that automatically generates an HTML form in Business Process Portal.
*Custom that generates a custom JSP form.
*Flow that starts a Web (formerly BPM Workflow) process from a BP Server process by redirecting the Web process to the BPM Workflow server.
*Flow (private) that starts a Web process restricted to the current process.
Controlling the application
Define application control functions, business rules1, and management reports You need access permissions to view and analyze management reports.
1 BPM Events rules are flexible, capable of monitoring Business Process Server applications, synchronizing process flow, and generating management reports.

While developing applications, you must be familiar with the Business Process Server concepts and terminology. You can refer to Business Process Portal User’s Guide and OpenEdge Getting Started: Developing BPM Applications with Developer Studio for more on Business Process Portal and Designer concepts.
For more information on Business Process Server-related terminology, see the Glossary section at the end of this guide. For a fuller listing of Business Process Server terminology, see the OpenEdge Business Process Server: Terminology Guide.