Roadmap

August 1st: 5.0.alpha4

• BPMN Parallel gateway
• BPMN Embedded subprocess
• PVM concurrency and scoping

September 1st: 5.0.beta1

• Spring configuration support

October 1st: 5.0.rc1

November 1st: 5.0

Tasks

•  
• BPMN  activity types (see below)
•  
• Task email notifications
• History + 2 reports** Process definition report
  • • Average times per activity in a process instance
    • # Processes started - # Finished processes in last 12 months
  • Overview
    • # instances per process definition
      • In progress
      • Completed
    • Pie chart # process definitions started in the last 3 months
• Task audit logging (==> variable declarations + forms in example)
• Controlled optimistic locking test
• Manage deployments in Probe
• Manage jobs in Probe
• Discussions on tasks and process instances
• Discuss and incorporate spring refactorings
• Discuss and refactor project module structuring
• Process test suite
  • Concurrency + end process instance
  • Concurrency with and without wait states
  • Email notifications

• CI driver scripts
  • DB (in progress)
  • TX * Server * DB environment
• Improve JUnit support
  • also include inheritence as an option
    • services available as member fields
  • fix naming 
    • deployer.getProcessService().startProcessInstanceByKey(...);
      • activitiTestHelper.getProcessService().startProcessInstanceByKey(...); (aggregation)
      • processService().startProcessInstanceByKey(...); (inheritance)
    • new JobExecutorPoller(deployer.getProcessEngine()).waitForJobExecutorToProcessAllJobs(10000L, 250);
      • activitiTestHelper..waitForJobExecutorToProcessAllJobs(10000L, 250);
      • waitForJobExecutorToProcessAllJobs(10000L, 250);

Deployment option matrix

Productization requirements

• Explicit
• Docced
• Example
• CI covered (muodules examples and test-api)

Transaction demarcation technology

• myBatis
• user provided JDBC connection
• JTA
• JPA
• Spring
  • Standalone (datasource + spring managing tx on jdbc connections)
  • JTA
  • ... ?

Server environment

• Standalone JVM
• Tomcat

Packaging

• Serverwide
• Activiti inside war

Database

• MySQL
• Oracle
• PostgreSQL

Requirements Ideas

Business Analyst

• Save abstract business process in a model repository
  • File based repository
  • Document repository
• Author BPMN 2.0 processes
  • BPMN 2.0 spec compliant xml serialization (5.0) 
  • Browse process repository
  • Open existing BPMN 2.0 process (5.0)
  • Create new BPMN 2.0 process
  • Author abstract business process
• Reporting
  • History data in DB (5.0)
  • BIRT reports
• Process model collaboration
  • Involve people with a process
  • Discuss a process
  • Link process to other artifacts in the BPM cycle
• Define task forms in a web browser
• Simulation
  • Specify bell shaped probability curves
  • Specify scenarios
  • Produce report of execution run
• Zero code approach
  • Produce executable models in web browser
  • Deployment from web browser
  • UDDI browser
  • Schema mapper
  • (Web) Service production.  Result of deployment is a new (web) service

Evaluator

• Easy setup (installer)
• Online demo

Developer

• Java API
  • Stable PVM API
  • Stable Persistent API (5.0)
  • Query API (5.0)
• Database persistence
  • Easy DB pluggability (5.0)
  • MySQL (5.0)
  • Oracle (5.0)
  • PostgreSQL (5.0)
  • DB2
  • MSSQL
  • MaxDB
  • Sybase
• Limited number of tables
• Very little external dependencies
  • Object API: only JVM
  • Persistence API: only ibatis
  • Other dependencies only introduced when the feature is actually used
• Event listeners (5.0)
• Timers (5.0)
• Asynchronous continuations 
• Process instance migration
• Variables
  • Variable type system customization (5.0)
  • Transient variables 
  • System variables
    • Might be useful for complex gateways
  • Pluggable mechanism for variables referencing external entities (5.0)

• • • JPA (5.0)
    • JCR Node
    • Hibernate
    • Out of scope: flushing updates to the referenced entity to the external persistence system
    • Others?
  • Process domain object ${this.customer.address.street}
    • external jpa references is enough for 5.0
• Query for process instances based on variable values
  • Limited capabilities (5.0)
• User provided process instance id (jbpm 4 business key) 
  • Can be replaced by searchable variable
• Spring integration
  • Configure a ProcessEngine in spring bean xml
    • Allow ProcessEngine injection
    • Close ProcessEngine on ApplicationContext close
  • Transaction integration
    • User bean method defining the tx
    • Activiti service method defining the tx
    • Combine user domain object updates with process updates in a single transaction
  • Expression naming resolution includes spring beans
  • Spring bean xml resource as part of the deployment.  Resulting in a deployment scoped spring bean cache
  • Namespace handler
  • Process scope
• Rules integration
  • See jBPM 4 example
• LDAP integration
  •  Identity component pluggability (5.0)
  • Configure an LDAP store
  • How do we know which schema the data is stored?
• Remote access through service API over REST
• Async access to service API
• Easy to add new activity type to the Activiti Engine
• Easy to add new activity type to the Activiti Modeler
• Task lifecycle pluggability
• Eclipse tooling support
  • Create a new process project (or should we aim for SpringRoo only)
  • Create a new BPMN process file
  • Model the graphical part graphically.  Details in XML
  • Extended XML code completion
  • Auto create stub for non existent
• High scalability and throughput

End user

• Web based task inbox
  • Process defined tasks
  • Claiming tasks
  • Task forms
  • Internationalization for task forms
  • User defined tasks
  • Dynamic subtasks
  • Associating people
  • Discussions on a single task
  • Discussions on a process instance
  • Associating documents
• Android task inbox
• Mail forms: Complete a task by replying to a mail
  • Similar for SMS, IM, ...
  • Pluggable task interaction handler

Manager

• View reports
• Viewing other people’s tasks
• Audit trails
  • Who submitted what data in certain task forms
• Delegation when a user goes on holiday
  • Existing tasks
  • New tasks for which the engine would assign it to that user
• Authorization
  • How to ensure that only a manager can look into subordinates tasks?

System admin

• Manage jobs
  • View list of job failures
  • Retry failed jobs
• View database content
• View logs (javax.util software log files)
• View activiti configuration file
• Manage deployments
• View process definitions
• Manage process cache
  • Clear cache
  • View list of cached processes
• Clear process definition cache
• Manage multiple Activiti instance from 1 tool
• Purging history
• Manage security / authorization controls
• Manage identity data
• Manage the business calendar

Deployment

• Run as a server wide install
  • Automatic installation and CI
    • Tomcat
    • BEA WLI
    • WebSphere
    • JBoss
    • Glassfish
  • Automatic initialization and destruction of the ProcessEngine(s)
    • How should the configurations be found?
• Run on naked JVM
• Run embedded into war
  • Documentation on how to do it
  • Automatic installation and CI
• Run embedded into ears
  • Documentation on how to do it
  • Automatic installation and CI
  • Automatic initialization and destruction of the ProcessEngine(s)
• Run as an OSGi bundle
  • Documentation on how to do it
  • Automatic installation and CI
  • Automatic initialization and destruction of the ProcessEngine(s)
• Process as a service
  • Automatic creation/destruction of a new Activiti instance
  • Administer multiple Activiti instance from 1 tool
• Cloud deployment
  • Automatic creation/destruction of a new Activiti instance
  • …

QA

• Stable software
• Reliable in production environments
• Test coverage assurance for all features in the user guide

BPMN

• Functional activity types
  • Human task (5.0)
  • Service task
    • Web service (5.0)
    • Java binding (5.0)
  • Script task (5.0)
  • SQL task
    • Where/how to get the JDBC connection?
  • Email task (5.0)
  • Script task (JSR 223) (5.0)
  • Web service task
    • How to compose the message?
    • How to store the result?
  • ESB task
  • XML transformation task
  • Rules task
• Control flow activity types
  • Start event
    • Single start event
    • Multiple start events
    • Specific start event types?
  • Exclusive gateway
    • Transition conditions
      • UEL method expression
      • UEL value expression
      • Expression calculating outgoing transition name
        • UEL method expression
        • UEL value expression
        • Decision table
        • Rules evaluation
  • Parallel gateway
  • Embedded subprocesses
  • External subprocesses
  • End event
    • Does BPMN give us the option to choose between end process instance or just end execution?
• Timers
  • Business calendar
• Variable declarations
  • Input/output sets?