SUBPROCESS DEFINITION AND VISUALIZATION IN BPEL

• US 20150046905A1
• Filed: 08/09/2013
• Published: 02/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Kumar, Yogesh, Mi, Glenn Weiqun, Chmielewski, Muruganantham, Chinnananchi, Michal, Pottlapelli, Murali, Ten-Hove, Ronald, Geib, Simone
• Granted Patent: US 9,141,383 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/122
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A system and method for enabling reuse of a portion of a business process. An example method includes employing a business process language to facilitate accessing a definition of a subprocess characterizing the process logic, wherein the definition indicates one or more parameters to be used by the subprocess to implement a task specified by the process logic; and employing the definition to facilitate: using one or more variables of a parent process as one or more arguments that are passed to an instantiated version of the subprocess, and mapping the one or more arguments to the one or more parameters. In a more specific embodiment, the example method further includes characterizing a behavior of the subprocess via one or more dynamic scoping rules. The business process language includes a version of Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), and a BPEL extension activity facilitates defining the subprocess.

Claims

1. A method for enabling reuse of a portion of a business process, the method comprising:

accessing, via a business process language, a definition of a subprocess characterizing process logic associated with the portion, wherein the definition indicates one or more parameters to be used by the subprocess to implement a task specified by the process logic; and

employing the definition to enable;

using one or more variables of a parent process as one or more arguments passed to an instantiated version of the subprocess; and

mapping the one or more arguments to the one or more parameters in accordance with the definition.

2. The method of claim 1, further including characterizing a behavior of the subprocess via one or more dynamic scoping rules.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the business process language includes a version of Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), and wherein the parent process includes a business process, and further including employing a BPEL extension activity to facilitate accessing the definition of the subprocess.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein mapping further includes assigning the one or more parameters to the one or more variables indicated by the one or more arguments, thereby implementing passing by reference the one or more variables from the parent process to the subprocess.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein mapping further includes assigning one or more parameters to one or more copies of the one or more variables indicated by the one or more arguments, thereby implementing passing by value of the one or more variables from the parent process to the subprocess.

6. The method of claim 3, further including accessing a definition of a call activity to enable calling the subprocess from the parent process, wherein a reference to the call activity includes the one or more arguments set with the one or more variables.

7. The method of claim 6, further including accessing one or more attributes provided via a reference to a call activity to characterize one or more parameters received as the one or more variables via the one or more arguments.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more attributes include a from-spec initializer adapted to initialize one or more of the one or more parameters, and wherein the from-spec initializer represents an optional attribute for optionally setting a default value for a parameter of the subprocess.

9. The method of claim 7, further including determining if a parameter initialized by a from-spec initializer represents a parameter mapped to a variable supplied in the reference to the call activity and selectively overwriting an initialized value of the parameter with a value specified via the variable in response thereto.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the reference to the call activity further includes one or more attributes characterizing whether the mapping is to implement passing by reference or passing by value of the one or more variables to the subprocess in preparation for mapping the one or more variables to the one or more parameters.

11. The method of claim 10, further including employing the subprocess to access one or more variables of the parent process that are not passed via one or more arguments to the subprocess, but are in a scope characterizing the reference to the call activity in the parent process.

12. The method of claim 10, further including employing an instantiated version of the call activity to pass plural variables to the subprocess via the plural arguments indicated in a portion of computer code referencing the call activity and in accordance with the one or more attributes.

13. The method of claim 6, further including detecting when the call activity lacks specification of an attribute indicating whether the mapping is to implement passing by value or passing by reference, and employing passing by reference as a default when the call activity lacks the specification.

14. The method of claim 6, further including employing the code fragment representing the process logic and included in the subprocess definition to perform an operation on the one or more variables or on copies of the one or more variables, via the one or more parameters, when the one or more variables are passed by reference or by value, respectively, to the subprocess from the parent process.

15. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more variables further include one or more partner links, and wherein an interface between the parent process and the subprocess does not employ a BPEL receive activity and does not employ a BPEL reply activity.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein definition of the subprocess includes a definition of a standalone subprocess, and wherein the definition of the standalone subprocess is adapted to enable an instance of a subprocess to be shared simultaneously among plural parent processes.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the definition of the subprocess includes a definition of an inline subprocess, wherein the definition of the inline subprocess is included in computer code characterizing the parent process, and wherein the definition of the inline subprocess is characterized by a child scope of a parent process that calls the subprocess via a call activity statement included in computer code thereof.

18. The method of claim 3, wherein the definition of the subprocess is adapted to enable a portion of the subprocess to call the subprocess itself, thereby facilitating recursion.

19. An apparatus comprising:

a digital processor coupled to a display and to a processor-readable storage device, wherein the processor-readable storage device includes one or more instructions executable by the digital processor to perform the following acts;

accessing, via a business process language, a definition of a subprocess characterizing process logic associated with the portion, wherein the definition indicates one or more parameters to be used by the subprocess to implement a task specified by the process logic; and

employing the definition to enable;

using one or more variables of a parent process as one or more arguments passed to an instantiated version of the subprocess; and

mapping the one or more arguments to the one or more parameters in accordance with the definition.

20. A processor-readable storage device including instructions executable by a digital processor, the processor-readable storage device including one or more instructions for:

accessing, via a business process language, a definition of a subprocess characterizing process logic associated with the portion, wherein the definition indicates one or more parameters to be used by the subprocess to implement a task specified by the process logic; and

employing the definition to enable;

using one or more variables of a parent process as one or more arguments passed to an instantiated version of the subprocess; and

mapping the one or more arguments to the one or more parameters in accordance with the definition.