WebSphere Business Integration Adapters: An Adapter Development and WebSphere Business Integration Solution

702 WebSphere Business Integration Adapters

The pick activity waits for an incoming message and selects a path

appropriate to the first message received. A time-based path can be

configured to manage situations where no message is received. A

partner link is associated with each message path.

The staff activity delegates a task within the process to a human. The

user interface in this case is either a custom application based on the

process choreographer API or the web client provided that comes with

WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation.

The transformer activity maps the contents of one or more message

types to the contents of another.

The assign activity copies information from one part of the process to

another.

The switch activity evaluates the conditions on a series of control paths

and follows the first one which matches.

The while activity repeats the activities which it contains as long as a

condition is met.

The wait activity stops the process until a point in time has occurred or

a time interval has elapsed.

The sequence activity defines a serial control path within a process.

The flow activity defines a potentially parallel control path within a

process.

The terminate activity stops the process immediately without

performing any compensation or fault handling. The behavior of this

activity depends on the location within the process.

The throw activity signals that an error has occurred. This is typically

handled by a fault handler element associated with a higher level of

process structure.

Activity Description

Chapter 30. Adding human interaction using WebSphere BI Server Foundation 703

Figure 30-72 shows the Invoke activity. You can see the small icon on the right,

which you choose in the activity palette, is the same as the small upper center of

the icon that appears on the process area.

Figure 30-72 Palette icons

30.3.5 Tasks

In the following sections, we show you how to complete some of the most

common tasks to get you started.

Creating a new business process

To create a new business process:

1. Switch to the Business Integration Perspective.

2. Create a Service project by selecting File → New → Service Project from

the main menu.

3. Select this newly created Service project and click File → New → Business

Process.

The empty element does nothing. It can be used as a placeholder

during process design, and then changed to the appropriate activity

when the process is implemented.

Java code can be embedded into the process using the JavaSnippet

activity. While it is possible to embed business logic into this type of

activity it is not advisable, as it removes the clarity of the process

modelling. Snippets are designed to perform lightweight utility activities

such as data mapping.

Tip: You can change the activity type by right-clicking the activity in the

process editor and selecting Change Type. Use this facility with caution,

however, because changing the type of a structured activity (such as

sequence or flow) deletes the contents of that block.

Activity Description

Activity icon as seen in

the process area

Icon chosen from

palette to produce

this activity

704 WebSphere Business Integration Adapters

4. In the New Business Process window, specify a package and a name for the

new process, and click Next.

5. In the Choose Process Type window, choose from the following BPEL

process options:

Flow-based Use this setting if you want control dictated by control

links.

Sequence-based Use this setting if you want your process controlled by

structured activities.

6. Click Finish.

These steps create a process and launch that process in a new process editor. A

few files are generated that you can view in the Services view. The file with the

BPEL extension contains the code that describes this process, and the WSDL

file describes the service interface.

Creating a partner link

To create a partner link:

1. In the Partner Links area on the canvas, click the plus icon.

2. Give the partner link an appropriate name.

3. Click the Implementation tab in the Details area.

Figure 30-73 shows where you can find these fields and icons in the editor.

Figure 30-73 Create and name a new partner link

Figure 30-74 on page 705 shows the fields in the Implementation tab of the

new partner link.

Type name in either

field

Click PLUS

to create a

new partner

Implementation tab