Chapter 6. jBPM tasks
This chapter covers
- Understanding the role of tasks in jBPM
- Assigning actors to tasks
- Using the task API
In the previous chapter, we covered many of the basics of what constitutes a BPM solution and then looked at a specific BPM implementation using JBoss jBPM, which we selected for our Open SOA Platform. Omitted from our coverage of core jBPM features were tasks—a broad and important topic. This chapter’s focus will address this very subject.
Many of the greatest improvements in productivity that have resulted from IT systems involve automation. When systems, instead of humans, make decisions by way of business rules, immediate benefits are achieved through dramatically reduced processing time. Other payoffs include improved consistency, error reduction, more demonstrable compliance, and operational reporting. The fact remains, though, that humans, not computers, are still necessary for many process-related decisions or tasks. Despite our best efforts, the nuances of human judgment are often necessary (after all, how can we forget what happened in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey?). Such tasks and decisions that must be performed by humans are now even given a fancy name—human intelligence tasks (HITs).