OSWorkflow: A guide for Java developers and architects to integrating open-source Business Process Management

OSWorkflow is an open-source workflow engine written entirely in Java with a flexible approach and a technical user-base target. It is released under the Apache License. You can create simple or complex workflows, depending on your needs. You can focus your work on the business logic and rules. No more Petri Net or finite state machine coding! You can integrate OSWorkflow into your application with a minimum of fuss. OSWorkflow provides all of the workflow constructs that you might encounter in real-life processes, such as steps, conditions, loops, splits, joins, roles, etc.

This book explains in detail all the various aspects of OSWorkflow, without assuming any prior knowledge of Business Process Management. Real-life examples are used to clarify concepts.

This book covers all aspects related to OSWorkflow. No prior knowledge about OSWorkflow is needed. You will learn everything from the basics of Business Process Management (BPM) technology and installing OSWorkflow to integrating the workflow engine with third-party components like Drools, Quartz, and Pentaho.

In this book we will:

• Understand basics of BPM technology.
• See how to create workflows with the help of an examples workflow.
• Integrate Drools open source engine in our workflow engine.
• Integrate Quartz task scheduler along with the Workflow.

Chapter 1 gives an overview of the BPM technology and the workflow engine, along with an analysis of the different type of BPMS.

Chapter 2 introduces OSWorkflow and teaches the basics of the workflow engine along with a real life example.

Chapter 3 introduces several key features of OSWorkflow like handling persistent and transient variables, variable interpolation, built in OSWorkflow functions, Conditions, BeanShell scripting.

Chapter 4 covers Persistence of variables across invocations, and the FunctionProviders along with integrating OSWorkflow with Spring.

Chapter 5 introduces and integrates Rules engine and Drools open source rule engine.

Chapter 6 we explore the Quartz task scheduler, its integration with OSWorkflow and we give a tutorial with Quartz sending events and actions to OSWorkflow.

Chapter 7 introduces Event Stream Processing and Complex Event Processing. We give an OSWorkflow function provider that interfaces with the ESPer CEP engine and allows the monitoring of real time process information and events.

Chapter 8 gives OSWorkflow visualization of its business process information with the Pentaho Open source BI solution. Using the charting capabilities of Pentaho we build an enterprise process dashboard to monitor and analyze the processes.

This book gives step-by-step instructions on how to do things. The basics are explained first and then examples help to clarify and reinforce the principles.

The book is aimed at experienced Java developers and system architects who want to develop complex Java applications using the OSWorkflow workflow engine. OSWorkflow is a flexible low-level workflow implementation for developers and architects; it is not a quick "plug-and-play" solution for non-technical end users.