BPM Tools

WebLogic Integration comes with tools to design, execute, and monitor workflows. For designing and monitoring workflows, you use Studio. For executing and monitoring workflows, you use a tool called Worklist.

Studio

Studio is a graphical design tool that allows you to design and monitor workflows. It comes with the following utilities:

• XML Finder ” XML Finder is an XML content management tool that facilitates access and management of different types of XML content, including Schema Documents (XSD), Document Type Definitions (DTD), Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) template documents, and so on that may be stored in a datastore such as WLI repository.

• XML Editor ” The XML Editor enables you to compose, import, and export XML documents from within workflows. You can use it to compose XML document templates from scratch, edit existing documents, and validate content based on given XML Schemas.

• Expression Builder ” While you re designing a workflow, you need to create expressions consisting of variables , operators, literals, and functions. The Expression Builder tool helps you construct and validate the syntax.

• XPath Wizard ” XPath functions are used to extract content from incoming XML documents. The XPath Wizard is a point-and-click tool that generates XPath expressions from selected content in sample XML documents or schemas or DTD-generated XML.

• Import/Export Wizard ” The Import/Export Wizard enables export of all workflow templates and associated resources, such as business operations, event keys, plug-ins, and XML entities defined in the system. Workflow objects are exported to a Java archive ( .jar ) file and can be re-imported to any system running Studio. This is the mechanism used to move workflows from development to QA to production.

Worklist

Worklist is a swing-based tool that is used to interact with a workflow. It can be used to both start and stop a workflow. Using Worklist, a user can provide specific input to a process. For example, if the inventory is less than a certain amount, the process could be set to get an approval before back-ordering a part. The inventory manager would then need to log on using Worklist and approve or disapprove the order.

This tool is deprecated and will be replaced by a JSP-based tool. Users can also write their own tools using the BPM API.