Chapter 5. Implementing a BPMN 2.0 process
This chapter covers
- Implementing a full-blown BPMN 2.0 process
- Adding logic to processes using a script and service task
- Using Activiti forms for starting a process and user tasks
- Conditional logic using the exclusive gateway
- Sending emails with the Activiti email service task
In the first chapter, I mentioned how big the BPMN 2.0 specification was. To be honest, if you took a look at all the constructs that are available and the number of pages the specification covers, you’ll probably feel hesitant to ever take another look. But if you take a practical approach to BPMN, the specification suddenly becomes a whole lot easier to handle; you don’t have to know all the nitty-gritty details of BPMN 2.0 to do business process modeling in your enterprise. In this chapter, we’ll examine a practical approach to implementing a BPMN 2.0 business process.
We’ll start by looking at a loan request business process that we’ll use throughout the chapter. After considering it from a functional point of view, we’ll get down to the BPMN 2.0 XML step by step. First, we’ll add business logic to the process by implementing a script task and a service task. Then we’ll add a start form to the process and cover the workflow functionality with user tasks. In the fourth section, we’ll cover the exclusive gateway and the email task with a mail server.