To set custom properties for new query requirements in the WebSphere Process server

Brief introduction

When you develop a business process client program, you often need to query process instances, activities, and tasks within a process instance through certain business data standards. For example, you might want to find all the tasks associated with an ID's customer in the process instance.

When you design a process in WebSphere integration Developer (hereinafter referred to as Integration Developer), you can implement this requirement by setting custom attributes for human tasks. However, when the process is put into use, if the new query requires new custom attributes, then this trick is not the spirit. You can, of course, use the process versioning method provided by the WebSphere Process Server (hereinafter referred to as Process Server) to add new custom attributes to the newer business process. However, you cannot query an existing legacy business process with a new custom attribute.

This article provides some help to business process designers and programmers who are familiar with business process development. This article assumes that you are familiar with process Server and develop business process applications with integration Developer.

In this article, we assume that the integration Developer V6.1.2 has been properly installed.

This article describes a dynamic approach that uses the Business process choreographer (BPC) EJB API to set custom attributes for a running business process instance to resolve such problems.

We will use a simple command audit process to illustrate this solution. Sample process workflows include the following typical steps:

The customer submits an order request containing information about the user and the auditor.

The auditor approves or rejects the request.

Finally, when the auditor approves or rejects the request, the system gives the customer a response.

Examples and modules are described in the following sections.

Preparing sample Process Projects

Use a prepared business process to import a project interchange file as follows:

Download the provided Orderdemo.zip file and save it to a temporary directory.

In the WebSphere integration Developer, click File-> Import. The Import dialog box opens.

Select Project Interchange.

Click Next. The Import Project Interchange Contents window opens (as shown in Figure 1).

1. Import dialog box