[rules-users] First experience with Drools 'BPM' ruleflow : some questions

[Kris Verlaenen]

Quoting Thierry <thierry.lejealle at capgemini.com>:

> Kris Verlaenen <kris.verlaenen <at> cs.kuleuven.be> writes:
> 
> Kris thanks a lot for your answers they're very helpfull.
> 
> >Is there a way to render the process model more user friendly
> toward
> > > more 'business' people ? [...] A graphical editor would be very
> > > nice.
> 
> Oups ! I made an english mistake here :)
> 
> I was thinking about the data model that you use within the process.
The data model you use inside your processes is just plain old Java.  If
you want to design that data using a graphical editor, I guess you
should look at existing UML tools (or similar) that can do that, this is
currently out-of-scope.  Maybe later, once we start defining ontologies
and semantics related to those models.

> By the way what is the better approach : using a global 
> JavaBean 'processModel' Object where you plug all the data that you
> need in 
> the process or using multiple variable ?
I don't see why you wouldn't use multiple variables, just for simplicity.

> 
> I'm still not set on whether it's better to generate 'state' variable
> (shouldProcessStop, isProcessEnded, isCustomerIdentified, etc...)
> that would 
> be calculated through rules or actions nodes and then used in
> constraints or 
> if I should try to 'evaluate' those status in the constraints
> themselves. 
> Having the rules engine close by opens new dimension on BPM compared
> to jBPM...

I agree, and this is a whole new area we are exploring.  You can now
have multiple process fragments and have rules decide when to trigger
which fragments, etc.  So I can't really give you a proven solution.  My
idea is, try to model it the way you think about it, that usually gives
the best solution.

> > There is an Eclipse plugin that allows you to query for human tasks
> and
> > complete them, for testing purposes.  Similarly, there is a simple
> Swing
> > GUI that can be used to see the work items generated by the process
> and
> > complete them: 
> 
> Is it part of the Drools release ? Or an aditional tool ?
It's a simple class for testing purposes, don't expect anything fancy:
UIWorkItemHandler in drools-core.

Kris

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