Create customized user interfaces that a user sees for the process instance in Process Portal.
About this task
IBM® Business Process Manager provides a user interface for your instances in Process Portal. You can either use the provided interface or you can create your own user interface and make it the default user interface for all users. Optionally, you can also create your own user interface that is customized for instance owners.
Attention: A process instance user interface must be implemented as a client-side
human service. You cannot implement it as a heritage human service. These are the process instance user interfaces that you can create:
The Default user interface that overrides the user interface that is provided by IBM BPM. Any user that has permission to see the process instance in Process Portal will see this interface. You can create a client-side human service and specify it as the user interface. If you do not specify a client-side human service here, the user interface that is provided by IBM BPM is used.
The Instance Owners user interface is an optional user interface that you can create for the team that is specified in the Instance owner team field in the Overview page. You can create a client-side human service and specify it as the user interface for the instance owners.
Procedure
To create a process instance user interface, first create a client-side human service, then create your customized interface by modifying the generated service and
adding a coach.
Open the BPD for which you want to create the user interface. Switch to the Views page.
Under Details UI, select the interface that you want to create (Default or
Instance Owners).
Select a client-side human service, or create a new one. IBM BPM provides a template in the Dashboards toolkit, called Instance Details UI Services Template. You can copy this template and modify it to create your custom UI. The template contains the following coaches:
View Instance Details coach, which contains the following coach controls: Default Instance Details Template
displays the instance details in Process Portal
Data section
displays the values of the variables that are passed into the client-side human service.
Show error, which returns an error if the instance is not found.
5. 6. 7. A. B. C.
Map the process variables to the client-side human service variables. To
automatically map input properties with process variables, click the auto-map icon .
Open the client-side human service, and click Run to test the client-side
human service and the coach.Note: If you copied the template in step 4, remove the defensive logic that shows an error when the instance ID is null.
To test the interaction between the user interface and the process:
Open the BPD and click Run Process in the toolbar.
Switch to the Inspector when prompted.
In the Inspector, select the process instance and click the Runs the Details UI
for the selected BPD Instance in the toolbar.
Process Portal opens in your default browser showing the process instance user interface. You can view the user interface, enter data, and interact with the
process.
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Building services
Use services to implement the activities in a business process definition (BPD). When a BPD starts and the tasks within it are invoked, services perform the required functions.
The type of service that you choose to create depends upon the requirements of the activity. For example, if an activity requires integration with an external system, such as a database, you can create an integration service. If an activity requires that call center personnel enter data about customer requests, you can create a human service with a coach.
Service types
Learn about the types of services available in IBM BPM and when to use each type.
Service components
Learn about the tools and components available when building services in IBM Process Designer.
Building a Decision service
Build a Decision service when you want a decision or condition in a business rule to determine which process implementation is invoked. For example, when a certain condition evaluates to true, Process Designer implements the associated activity or action.
Building a client-side human service
Build a client-side human service to handle the interaction for process or case instances between the system and users through interactive tasks, dashboards, or user interfaces. Within a client-side human service, you can use coaches, client- side scripts, and services to create a service flow that is run entirely in a web browser.Case management functions are only available if you have IBM BPM Advanced with the Basic Case Management feature installed.
Building a heritage human service
Build a heritage human service when you want an activity in your business
process definition (BPD) to create an interactive task that process participants can perform in a web-based user interface.
Building an Ajax service
Build an Ajax service when you want a coach view to send data to or retrieve data from the server asynchronously, such as for auto-completion in text fields, for
default selection values in selection lists, and so forth.
Building an integration service
Build an integration service when you want a flow to interact with an external system.
Building an advanced integration service
An advanced integration service is used to call a service implemented in IBM Integration Designer from a business process definition (BPD) (via a system task) or another service (via a nested service).
Building a General System service
other actions that do not require any integrations or business rules.