permission from the publisher, Wellesley Information ... · PDF fileenvironment (see Key Term box). The ... its actual development, deployment, and execution. ... Collaborative,

Donka Dimitrova and Ral f Schaub, SAP AG

Technical column | SAP NetWeaver Unleashed

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This article appeared in the Jan n Feb n Mar 2009 issue of SAP Insider and appears here with permission from the publisher, Wellesley Information Services (WIS), www.WISpubs.com.

All companies have internal corporate processes —

such as order-to-cash or procure-to-pay — by which

they do business. But these processes are often

cumbersome, unwieldy, and error-prone, involving

many manual steps. We’re sure you can think of at

least one process within your company where it takes

an email or a phone call to alert a co-worker that a

certain task is awaiting his or her review and approval.

What’s more, not all companies have standardized

or documented their processes, and even fewer can

say that they’ve optimally designed their processes

to help them best achieve their corporate performance

goals. Especially in tight economic times, document-

ing your processes and making them as efficient and

productive as possible are critical priorities; to stay

competitive, companies need to have their processes

under control so that they can nimbly change them to

meet shifting customer needs.

These business reasons have prompted a new line

of solutions, business process management (BPM)

applications, which provide IT organizations with a

framework of tools to model, deploy, and execute

processes. SAP has come to market with SAP NetWeaver

Business Process Management (SAP NetWeaver BPM).

With the first release of this solution (see sidebar),

customers can document and execute their processes,

Gain Control of Your Critical Business ProcessesDesign, Document, and Deploy Them with SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management

Donka Dimitrova (donka.dimitrova @sap.com) is part of the product management team for SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management (SAP NetWeaver BPM). She is focused on early customer adoption programs, leading the SAP NetWeaver BPM Design Partner Council, which consists of 10 SAP customers selected from different industries and worldwide locations. The council’s mission is to help the SAP team validate BPM goals, concepts, and technology throughout the entire software life cycle.

easily connecting human and system activities in a

single, seamless workflow, regardless of how many

different business applications they cross.

SAP NetWeaver BPM supports a model-driven

approach to documenting and managing business

processes throughout their life cycles, and it enables

collaboration between business and IT experts via

multiple views in one process modeling environment.

This article will show you the key steps of how

to design and deploy a business process using

SAP NetWeaver BPM.

An Insider’s Look at SAP NetWeaver BPM: Functionality and ToolsSAP NetWeaver BPM consists of three building blocks

(see Figure 1):

The Process Composer is the design-time environ-

ment of SAP NetWeaver BPM. It’s a seamlessly

integrated, separate perspective of SAP NetWeaver

When Is SAP NetWeaver BPM Available?Now! SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management (SAP NetWeaver BPM) and SAP NetWeaver Business

Rules Management (SAP NetWeaver BRM) are two new components of SAP NetWeaver Composition

Environment (SAP NetWeaver CE). The components were released at the end of 2008 with enhancement

package 1 for SAP NetWeaver CE 7.1.

The integration between SAP NetWeaver BPM and SAP NetWeaver BRM allows customers to implement

executable, rule-based business processes and to achieve transparency and maintenance agility for

their corporate processes. Stay tuned for an upcoming SAP NetWeaver Unleashed column that will offer

additional information about the highlights, features, and use cases of SAP NetWeaver BRM.

FIgure 1 p The building blocks of SaP netWeaver BPm

Ralf Schaub ([email protected]) is a member of the SAP NetWeaver Solution Management organization. He has worked for more than 10 years in the SAP industry. Ralf joined SAP almost eight years ago and has held various positions throughout EMEA and Asia Pacific, from technology consultant to solution architect to product strategist. For the last two years, he has been focusing on shaping the SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management offering from a strategy perspective.

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Developer Studio, the Eclipse-based design-time tool

of SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment (SAP

NetWeaver CE). It provides business process model-

ing notation (BPMN) capabilities, which allow easy

and intuitive process modeling for both business

process experts and developers in one common

environment (see Key Term box). The Process

Composer supports all stages of process modeling —

from the high-level definition of the process down to

its actual development, deployment, and execution.

Process life cycle aspects (versioning, transport, etc.)

are also fully supported.

The Process Server is a newly developed, Java-

based engine that represents the run-time services

for SAP NetWeaver BPM.

The Process Desk is the human interaction manage-

ment part of SAP NetWeaver BPM. It’s used for manag-

ing processes and tasks and for displaying process

details. The Process Desk is composed of four tools:

Universal worklist (UWL) is the central access

point for tasks, alerts, and notifications. The UWL

is based on the portal platform.

Task execution user interface provides a UI for

any given task within a process.

Process list displays all running, completed, and

canceled processes that are relevant for the user.

Process visualization shows the process as a

diagram, similar to the visualization scheme in the

Process Composer. Using process visualization,

users can display details on individual objects — on

a task, for example.

How to Model, Deploy, and run a Process with the Process ComposerUsing the tools within the Process Composer,

business users can draw their business processes

without having to rely on IT for any manual coding.

In the Process Composer perspective, you will

find the Project Explorer view, a structured, hierar-

chical view of a process’s composition elements

(see Figure 2). Here, business users can navigate to

process-flow drawing objects, including processes,

data types, tasks, services, rules, and functions.

These process objects, which reside in the Process

Composer Palette, are grouped into five categories:

KeyTermBusiness process modeling notation (BPMN) is a standardized

graphical notation for drawing business processes in a workflow that all

business stakeholders readily understand. BPMN differentiates human

and automated activities; human activities normally trigger tasks that end

users execute, whereas automated activities are executed by a system.

¨

FIgure 2 q The Process

composer, the design-

time environment of

SaP netWeaver BPm

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Activities — Flow objects that represent different

process steps (human activity, sub-process, etc.)

Events — Flow objects that represent when some-

thing happens with the process (start event, end

event, intermediate error event, etc.)

Gateways — Flow objects that illustrate a split

or merge of the process flow (exclusive choice,

parallel split, etc.)

Connections — Flow objects that represent connec-

tions between activities, events, and gateways

(sequence flow, data flow, etc.)

Artifacts — Data objects and annotations

Users can draw the process diagram by dragging

and dropping the necessary flow objects from the

Palette or by using speed buttons that show up

around the process elements once they are dropped

into the process canvas (see Figure 3). The following

sections walk through how to draw each part, stage,

or event within a business process.

Set Up the Process Flow Diagram

Business users can represent each of their business

processes as a pool with one or several lanes (refer

back to Figure 2). A pool is a graphical container that

separates a group of activities from other pools, and

lanes are groups of activities associated with a

certain business role or function. A lane could also

represent a business system in which an automated

activity (a service) will be running.

The process diagram could contain several pools,

but only one pool is active and executed at run time.

The others are passive and contain activities external

to the main process — your supplier process, for exam-

ple — and are represented for documentation purposes

only. Once you’ve set up the basic pool or lane struc-

ture, continue to model the process based on the

events and activities that happen in your business.

Create an Event

Event objects represent actions that could happen

within a process, such as the start of the process or

an unexpected error.

Every process flow begins with a start event. Acti-

vating this start event requires a user to assign a

service interface to it. Once the process is deployed,

the call of the Web service interface will trigger

the process; a new process instance will be created.

An intermediate error event is used for capturing

errors that could happen during the process

execution — for example, if a Web service assigned to

an automated activity does not complete correctly.

An intermediate timer event is an action related

to a time constraint.

An end event is used after the process step that’s

considered the last step in the process.

A termination event is used to model a business

flow exception at the end of the process, usually

for abnormal behavior like wrong, missing, or

inconsistent business data.

Create a Human Activity

Collaborative, or “human-centric,” business processes

represent sequences of process steps performed by

humans and systems as part of one flow. The steps

performed by humans are called human activities,

and they are always associated with a task.

The task itself is a request for a human to perform

an action; it has a specific priority, UI, potential and

excluded owners, time constraints, and other proper-

ties. The task could be assigned to one or several

human activities within one process and could also be

assigned to human activities from different processes

created in the same development component.

You can create a list of common tasks in advance;

then, this list would be visible in the Process Compos-

er’s Project Explorer view for all users who are work-

ing on this specific project. When a user drags and

drops a task from the Project Explorer view into the

process canvas, the system automatically recognizes

it and creates a human activity for it.

Create an Automated Activity

Process steps that a business system performs are

represented in the process diagram as automated

activities, and they are always assigned a relevant

service interface. The Web services necessary for the

FIgure 3 u how to create

a process within a

process flow using

speed buttonsSpeed buttons

4 NoTe!

You can look at your

process diagram

through two views:

an outline view,

which shows the

hierarchy of the

process flow

elements, or a

miniature view,

which is used for

adjusting the area of

the process diagram

that’s visible in the

main process layout.

This miniature view

is especially helpful

for large, multi-lane

processes that

expand beyond the

width of your

monitor screen.

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process could be imported from three different

sources: the Enterprise Services Repository (ES

Repository), the Services Registry (SR), or a remote

location or local system.

SAP NetWeaver BPM’s out-of-the box integration

with the ES Repository and the SR is an important

piece of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) story

for SAP customers. This integration makes it easy for

customers to find and consume large numbers of

predefined Web services from SAP, helping compa-

nies build their own composite applications.

Create Sub-Processes

A sub-process is a reusable process flow element you

can use when modeling a parent process to reference

another process you’ve already modeled. Sub-processes

have a start and an end event containing the same

service operation. You can use sub-processes to

reduce the implementation effort for business

processes that have common process flow parts.

They also come in handy for reducing the complexity

of business process diagrams.

Set Up Process Contexts and Data Types

When a process executes, its relevant process data

can be stored in what’s called the process context.

The SAP NetWeaver BPM process context is repre-

sented by a data structure defined in an XML schema

definition (XSD) file. Data types could either be

imported as XSD files or defined manually. Data

types are created automatically when a task is

linked with a Web Dynpro user interface and also

when an imported WSDL file contains data type

definitions.

Dragging and dropping a data type from the Project

Explorer view into the process diagram defines the

data structure of the process context and allows

the mapping of the input/output parameters of auto-

mated activities, human activities, sub-processes,

and events. With this mapping, you’re defining the

information that is transferred from one process

step to another.

Enforce Business Rules in the Process Model

Business rules — including pricing or approval rules,

for example — complement and accelerate process

management via the automation, management, and

alignment of critical business decisions. There are

two ways to design and use business rules when

modeling a business process: You can create the

business rules directly with the Process Composer or

use the Rule Composer, which is a separate Eclipse-

based design-time perspective of SAP NetWeaver CE.

Using the Process Composer, you can model

process-specific rules and use them as a rule function

to make a gateway decision and to resolve the

mapping of different data types. You can also create

rules for dynamic task assignment and to achieve

rule-based responsibility determination — all directly

in the Process Composer.

Using the Rule Composer, you can model widely

applicable business rules, including “if/then” rules or

complex decision tables. Once deployed, business

rules created with the Rule Composer could be called

from the user interface or exposed as Web services

and very easily consumed through the automated

SaP netWeaver BPm

integrates with the

enterprise Services

Repository and the

Services Registry out

of the box. This is an

important piece of

the Soa story for

SaP customers.

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activities of the business process flows designed

using the Process Composer.

Deploy and Run the Process

Now that you’ve built your process, linked the under-

lying business data, and established any applicable

business rules, the final two steps are to deploy and

run the process. Do this by right-clicking on the

process development component, clicking “Build,”

and then clicking “Deploy.”

SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio also provides a

debugging perspective for processes created with

SAP NetWeaver BPM; you can use it to debug the

process flow, as well as to check the process behavior

and the values of the process context data at every

process step.

Once your process is up and running, you can use

SAP NetWeaver Administrator to monitor and manage

it. Because of the tight integration between SAP

NetWeaver BPM and SAP NetWeaver Administrator,

users can easily monitor the health of their business

process throughout its life cycle.

SAP NetWeaver BPM: outlook for 2009The delivery of SAP NetWeaver Business Process

Management is just the beginning of an exciting and

dynamic BPM story for SAP customers. The next

release of SAP NetWeaver BPM, planned for the end

of 2009 with the release of SAP NetWeaver 7.2, will

include additional capabilities and enhancements:

Enhanced end-user experience. To ease user

interface development, support for SAP NetWeaver

Visual Composer will be added. Support for offline

SAP Interactive Forms software by Adobe will also

be included; this software allows users to participate

in processes by receiving an email with an attached

form, completing this form, and sending it back to

the process engine for further processing.

Analytical data about process instances, tasks,

and other process-related attributes will be provided

through the Universal Data Interchange (UDI) of

SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence, which allows

direct access to BPM process metadata (start time,

end time, duration, and processors, for example).

The ability to create lightweight reports on this

data through SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is

also in the works.

Accelerated process composition. Composite process

developers will benefit from a variety of enhance-

ments in the Process Composer itself. Most note-

worthy will be the support for additional BPMN

artifacts, such as loops and exceptions.

Extended business rules integration. The integra-

tion of business rules will also be a major enhance-

ment in SAP NetWeaver BPM 7.2. Adding a UI for

tactical change management will improve the agility

of deployed composite processes and allow business

users to make ad hoc rule changes at runtime.

Taking BPM to the next level. Providing SAP

NetWeaver BPM for the composition of business

processes is only the first stage. The next level will be

to provide a comprehensive process view across

application and composite processes. This will ease

composition and process management for all process

domains in the SAP business application space.

With its enhancements and new capabilities,

SAP NetWeaver BPM 7.2 will allow customers and

partners to efficiently compose and deploy

composite business processes. Customers will also

be able to gain critical insights into the efficiency of

their process execution, allowing them to discover

opportunities for process improvements that can

bolster their business.

For additional information about SAP NetWeaver

BPM, please visit https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/

nw-bpm. Here you will find a trial version of

SAP NetWeaver BPM (referred to as Project Galaxy),

which you can download and use to start modeling

your own business processes. n

...from The SAP NetWeaver/BI and Portals 2009 conference in Orlando,

March 24-27, 2009, for best practices on using SAP NetWeaver technology

(www.sapnetweaver2009.com)

SAP BPM Tools, an SAP Insider Multimedia Training CD

(www.sapinsidermultimedia.com)

Business Process Management: The SAP Roadmap by Jim Hagemann

Snabe, Ann Rosenberg, Charles Møller, and Mark Scavillo (SAP PRESS,

www.sap-press.com)

AdditionalResources...

composing business

processes with

SaP netWeaver BPm

is only the first stage.

With future releases,

customers will be able

to gain critical insights

into the efficiency of

their process execution.