what is a workflow?

SCT WorkflowStart 2 Finish

Rock Eagle 2003

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What is a workflow?

Workflow“…the automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information, or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.” Workflow Management Coalition

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What is SCT Workflow?

SCT Workflow: a core component of SCT solutions and SCT’s e-Education Infrastructure, is the only solution available that simplifies, connects and directs the flow of work and communicationthroughout your entire organization

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Overview! What can SCT Workflow do?! Implementing SCT Workflow

! Type of people needed for:! Workflow Development! Implementation/Maintenance

! Architecture! Banner Integration! Hardware and Software Requirements

What can Workflow do?

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What can SCT Workflow do?! Worklist: One view of all tasks!

! SCT Workflow can direct tasks to a shared worklist and individual worklist. Users receive one worklist!

! With SCT Workflow 3.1 end users can be notified via email that a new item has appeared on their list. The email can contain a HTML link to the activity.

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What can SCT Workflow do?! Event Dispatching

! SCT Workflow can recognize events in 3rd party systems and lookup if there is an associated workflow to start.

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What can SCT Workflow do?! Automated Activities!

! Workflow can execute a query in the middle of a process to fetch back more data to be used down the road.

! Workflow can call scripts such as batch files or shell scripts to interact with 3rd

party applications without any user intervention.

Building a workflow

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Background Questions! How many people have seen Workflow?

! Workflow 3.x?

! Does your school have PL/SQL programmers?

! Does your school have java programmers?

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Building a workflow! Business Process

Analysis

! Business process analysis takes 80% of your time.

! Understand your role players and your activities.

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Building a workflow! Go through a

Workflow Process analysis.! Take your BPA and

turn it into workflow activities.

! Identify what is automated, what is interactive. What event starts the workflow?

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Building a workflow! Building event in Banner

! Identify the table in which to apply a trigger for which a Workflow Event will be fired upon. ! Delivered with SCT Banner

General is a package GOKPARM which assistsin writing event data tothe event tables.

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Building a workflow! Building an automated activity that queries the

Banner database.! Identify the data that should be retrieved.

Note: Only one row of data can be retrieved to be inserted into context.

! Take store procedure or query and add it to the Business Component Catalog. Once in thecatalog the business analyst canincorporate the component intothe workflow.

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Building a workflow! Business Analyst wires together the

components.

! At this point the components have been created and the events are typically in place.

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Building a workflow! Identifying the resources

! Technical resource with Oracle database trigger experience for writing the Event Trigger.

! Technical resource to write the automated activities for dataretrieval should have OraclePL/SQL experience.

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Building a workflow! Identifying the resources, cont’d

! Business Analyst who will be the ‘Owner’ of the workflow process responsible to wire the components together and maintain the workflow process when it reaches production.

Maintaining Workflow

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System Administrator! Ideal candidate would be someone who is

familiar with Oracle 9ias as well as Oracle databases.

! Responsible for moving data from one system to another upon Business Analyst request.

! Evaluates logs from time to time and communicates problems with the system to the workflow owners.

Architecture

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Workflow is a J2EE application! J2EE technology and its component

based model simplifies enterprise development and deployment. The J2EE platform manages the infrastructure and supports the Web services to enable development of secure, robust and interoperable business applications.

“Sun’s website”

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Technical Architecture

Oracle 8i or 9iDatabase

SCT Workflow

Oracle 9ias Release 2

Oracle Containers for J2EE

SCT Workflow

Versata Interactive Server

SCT Banner RMI & Corba

JDBC

JDBC

JavaMail API

JDBC

Workflow ServerEmail Server

Supporting SMTP

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SCT Workflow



SCT Workflow


SCT Banner RMI

JDBC

JDBC

JavaMail API

JDBC

The SCT Workflow application is deployed to 9ias in the form of an Enterprise Archive also known as a EAR file.

The SCT Workflow application is deployed to 9ias in the form of an Enterprise Archive also known as a EAR file.


Supporting SMTP

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SCT Workflow



SCT Workflow


SCT Banner RMI

JDBC

JDBC

JavaMail API

JDBC

Workflow can run in a separate tablespace within the Banner database

– OR –

Workflow can run in its own database.

Workflow can run in a separate tablespace within the Banner database

– OR –

Workflow can run in its own database.


Supporting SMTP

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SCT Workflow



SCT Workflow


SCT Banner RMI

JDBC

JDBC

JavaMail API

JDBC

Running instances of Workflows are stored under the Vis schema and accessible by the “Versata Interactive Server”

Running instances of Workflows are stored under the Vis schema and accessible by the “Versata Interactive Server”


Supporting SMTP

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Workflow Business Events Diagram

Event Dispatcher

Mappedworkflows

SCT Banner Form

SCT Workflow

WorklistBusinessProcesses

Oracle

Email

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SCT Workflow

Event Dispatcher

BusinessProcesses

Mappedworkflows

SCT Banner FormUser enters data into Banner

Table trigger catches new data and creates a Business Event for that data

User enters data into Banner

Table trigger catches new data and creates a Business Event for that data

Worklist

Oracle

Email

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Event Dispatcher

Mappedworkflows

Email

SCT Banner Form

The Event Dispatcher picks up the new Business Event from the SCT Banner Database

SCT Workflow then evaluates any Business Processes and Workflows that it should start.

The Event Dispatcher picks up the new Business Event from the SCT Banner Database

SCT Workflow then evaluates any Business Processes and Workflows that it should start.

SCT Workflow

WorklistBusinessProcesses

Oracle

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Oracle

SCT Workflow

Event Dispatcher

BusinessProcesses

Mappedworkflows

SCT Banner Form

SCT Workflow can then use the data from the event as values in steps of the workflow

For example, a New Gift event could create a workflow that sent the donor an email thanking them for their contribution

SCT Workflow can then use the data from the event as values in steps of the workflow

For example, a New Gift event could create a workflow that sent the donor an email thanking them for their contribution

Worklist

Email

Hardware/Software Requirements

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Hardware Requirements! Supported Operating Systems

! Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Tru64, Windows and Linux.

! Server SpecsDual Processor at least 400 mhzMemory: 2 GB of RAMHard Disk: 1-2 GB of available space.

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Software Requirements! Application Server – Oracle 9ias Release 2

(9.0.3)

! Java VM – SDK 1.3.1Note: SCT Workflow 3.1 tested on 1.3.1_04

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Oracle 9ias! SCT Workflow utilizes the Oracle Containers for

J2EE (OC4J) component of Oracle 9ias.

! Versions of 9ias that are sufficient:

! “Oracle 9ias J2EE and Web Cache v9.0.3”

! “Oracle 9ias J2EE Downloads 9.0.3 ” – Oracle 9ias Containers for J2EEStandalone (ideal for testing)

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Oracle 9ias J2EE and Web Cache v9.0.3! Pros:

! Provides the “Enterprise Manager” to give a GUI tool to manage the 9ias instance.

! Provides a more robust web server (Oracle HTTP Server)

! Cons:! Resource intensive! Installation is more involved easily taking over

an hour to complete.

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Oracle 9ias Containers forJ2EE Standalone! Pros

! Installation takes 2 minutes

! Requires half the resources than that of 9ias

! Cons

! Configurations done via scripts and manual modifications to files.

! Oracle does not support SSL with the standalone version.

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Oracle 9ias – Things to note! SCT Workflow does not utilize the same

version of 9ias that is used by SCT Banner Internet Native at the moment.

! SCT Workflow can co-exist on a machine running both SCT Banner Internet Native as long as there are enough available resources to meet our requirements as well as Banner’s.

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Installation Process

Install9ias

Create DBTables/Packages

BuildEAR File

import

ImportBase Data

Create WORKFLOW_HOME

Deploy EAR File

EARFile

Summary

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Summary! What can it do?

! SCT Workflow is powerful when combining automated activities with interactive activities!

! Implementation! Two types of people are required for workflow

development: Business Analyst and Workflow developer

! Architecture! Oracle 9ias R2 9.0.3! Integration

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Questions and Answers

what is a workflow?

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