Two ways to start a business process that runs on WPS on a regular basis

Introduction

Typically, when a business process template is started, it enters a wait state. When a client initiates a request or has a triggering event, a new process instance is created based on the business process template. However, in some cases, the process is not triggered by the client, but requires the system to start automatically and periodically. For example, some business processes that perform system maintenance functions, or business processes that need to be performed on a regular basis. In this case, some mechanisms need to be applied to complete the automatic periodic triggering of the process.

This article mainly describes how to start a business process running on a WebSphere process Server (WPS) on a regular basis. There are two ways to get the process to start periodically:

Scheduler service (Scheduler) mechanism using the WebSphere application Server

Using the timer feature of EJB 2.1

In this article, we will first create a simple business process. We will then describe in detail how to apply the two mechanisms mentioned above to complete the regular start-up of the business process.

Create Business process

For simplicity, in this section, we will create a very simple business process ――autoprocess in WID, the main task of which is to receive the request and print the request data.

Figure 1. Business process