4 Modeling process data

One of the most important building blocks for a process project is data. It could be argued that this is a fact for any application development project, but it’s essential for a process project because, by definition, a process is receiving, acting on, moving, manipulating and modifying data constantly during its lifecycle. This data needs to be in a form that can be easily understood by all involved in designing and building the process project. The form the data is put into is called a Data Model, which is a part of every computer science student’s education, learning how to formally model data.

The actual discovery of data that’s part of the process you’re implementing, as well as the structuring of this into a form that can be considered a data model, is outside the scope of this article. I start at the point that you’ve a completed data model delivered to you for implementation and you need to make this model available to applications and processes from within the JBoss BPM Suite.

4.1   Data modeling tooling overview

4.1.1   Getting started with data modeling

4.1.2   Taking a close look at the data model editor

4.1.3   Adding fields to a data object

4.1.4   More to the data modeler than meets the eye

4.1.5   Using the data model source

4.2   Complete your data model

4.2.1   What to do with an external data model

4.2.2   Your external data model brought to you by ACME

4.2.3   Using the artifact repository effectively

4.2.4   How to use an imported external data model

4.3   Summary