Getting Started With Oracle BPM 11g
March 29, 2012
In a previous blog post I wrote a step by step guide on how to install Oracle BPM 11g. That was all good and well, but now what? The first thing I would suggest you do is go and by the book Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial. Read that book cover to cover and go through the labs. It provides very good information and a great sample application that you build from scratch throughout the book. If you’re like me and you want to first play with the software a little bit before you go reading a 500 and some-odd page book, Oracle allows you download the same application that you create in the book.
To download the sample application, go to:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bpm/learnmore/index.html
Browse down to the Samples and Demos section for the link. The sample application is called the Sales Quote Demo and is a BPM process where sales people enter in a quote into the process system, have the quote go through approvals and reviews, perform some automated routing, and finalize the quote.
Once you download the sample application and unzip it there are two documents to help you set up and run it. The first doc is the ‘Setup Instructions’, it takes you step by step through prepping your environment for the application. It walks you through the steps of creating your schema, setting up the WebLogic server, seeding the LDAP, connecting JDeveloper (or BPM studio if you prefer) to the MDS, deploying the project, setting up the groups, and mapping the LDAP users to the process roles. The guide is very good and I didn’t have any problems following through it step by step and deploying the application.
The second document is the ‘Understand and Run’ guide. This document has two sections. The first section goes through the process design and describes the logic behind it. The second section walks you through actually running the application and the end-user experience. Just like the Setup document, this guide is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. Unlike the Setup document, when you go through this guide you actually learn a little bit about Oracle BPM 11g and how it works.
Downloading the Sales Quote Demo and deploying it isn’t a replacement for reading the book I mentioned above or going to a training course, but it is a very good jumping off point. If you like dry reads you can download the various guides that Oracle has for BPM. The guides are all located at:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17904_01/nav/portal_booklist.htm
The guides are actually invaluable and for Oracle BPM 11g I would recommend downloading the following and putting them into your library:
- Quick Installation Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite
- Installation Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite
- Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
- Administrator’s Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite
- User’s Guide for Oracle Business Rules
- Business Process Composer User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
- User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
Going through these steps, setting up the Sales Quote Demo application, and reviewing it is a great way to start off learning BPM and I highly suggest it. Good luck!
John Linehan
ImageSource, Inc.
Fusion Middleware Patchset 5 in the Wild
February 27, 2012
Oracle slipped out the fifth patchset release for the Fusion Middleware products during the middle of the night on the 22nd of February. For the most part things will be very familiar to longtime users. One of the most visible changes is that the branding has caught up with the software. Oracle Content Server is now Webcenter Content, Imaging and Process Management is now Webcenter Imaging. It feels like an end of an era!
ImageSource has a customer that was entering an upgrade project for their Fusion Middleware based solution. After two surprisingly easy days I got their development and test environments up and running with this new release. Oracle has stated this released isn’t focused on adding lots of new features but they have rolled up a lot of bug fixes and patches that previously had to be installed separately into this release. This is by far the best release of this platform ever.
That’s not to say Oracle didn’t sneak in some great new features. Folks who haven’t got to try out the Oracle Business Process Management feature back in PR4 will find huge improvements in this release. One of the Webcenter Imaging additions I appreciate is a built-in configuration editor for any Oracle solution accelerators installed in the environment. Most folks probably haven’t had to work with those much but as one of the few who have let me tell you it’s a breath of fresh air to start seeing official Oracle tooling support and documentation for those things.
The folks at AMIS have a good write up with lots of reference links and general impressions of the release. All in all, I’m really excited to see what the future brings. Oracle has come a long way since the initial release of the 11g platform as a whole. Even from PS2 this seems like lightyears ahead.
Les Harris
Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.
IPM 10g is Going Away, Now What?
November 18, 2011
Earlier this month ImageSource hosted our annual ECM conference Nexus. I had the chance to meet with many of our customers and have some really great conversations. Many of these folks are running IPM 10g as a core component of their enterprise and since that product is being end of life’d they are taking a long hard look at their installations. Everyone wanted to know what options they had and to talk about the best way for them to move forward. The 11g version of IPM was frequently a core topic of conversation and everybody wanted to hear how to get from here to there.
This turns out to be a hard question to answer! There is no single bullet-proof solution that you can just pull the trigger on and have everything completed. (Sorry, we’re still working on the ILINX® Magic Wand) Depending on your environment and your goals there are different considerations. Let’s take a look at a few common scenarios.
IPM 10g, Imaging Only
So in your environment you’re using IPM to store and retrieve images. You’re not using workflow, you don’t have many complex integrations, IPM is basically acting solely as a repository. You are in a great position for an upgrade to IPM 11g. Unlike folks with workflows and complex integrations there is a clear and defined upgrade path for an Imaging-only IPM 10g system. Oracle provides a migration tool that performs the actual transfer of documents (with annotations!) from 10g to 11g. The upgrade is mostly a matter of setting the applications and searches up in 11g and letting this tool move the content over.
IPM 10g, Process
Your environment utilizes workflows to streamline your business processes. All your content can be moved over no problem as described previously in the Imaging-only section but what about all these workflows? Sadly there is no way to directly move these from 10g to 11g. 11g workflows utilizes technologies like BPM and BPEL which are architecturally far-removed from the Process engine in 10g.
Not all is lost however. While not being built on the same technology, there is a strong mapping between the older 10g workflow and 11g workflow (especially when using BPM). The workflows won’t have to be redesigned just reimplemented. Much of the work in creating workflow is capturing the business process in the first place, implementing the design is in many ways easier. Plus, this is a great time to take a look at your workflows and see which ones you are still using and which ones could do with some updates. IPM 11g offers much more advanced workflow functionality and this is also the perfect time to add modern workflow features into your own workflows.
I’ve talked a great deal at Nexus and with customers about the benefits of 11g workflow. If you’d like to learn more leave a comment or email me and we can talk about some of the features that can really add alot of value to your workflow business process.
Migration to Another Platform
Lastly since the switch to 11g is more of a migration rather than an upgrade now is a time to consider implementing other systems. Many of our current IPM 10g customers are looking at a product of ours called ILINX Content Store as a replacement option. IPM 11g is really geared towards the enterprise and everything from server hardware to licensing is based on that assumption. But if you are using IPM 10g at a departmental level, or just as an imaging repository 11g is in many ways overkill for your needs.
ILINX Content Store is focused on easy and effective content management with strong Microsoft Windows integration. It’s built on modern technologies and encapsulates our years of experience in the ECM space to provide an intuitive, easy to use and administer solution. It is a natural replacement for an imaging only IPM 10g system and most end-users find Content Store’s user experience easier and just as powerful.
If you’re using a lot of workflow though your options drift back towards the enterprise. Many of our customers are making Sharepoint a core component of their workflow strategy. We are also exploring IBM’s P8 family of products (which live in their FileNet umbrella).
Wrapping Up
These three scenarios are the ones that I see come up again and again. But every environment is different. Your needs and requirements are going to be different. If you have further questions I encourage you to leave a comment or email me and we can have a great discussion about where you are today and where you want to be.
Les Harris
Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.
Oracle BPM 11g Install for a Development Environment
September 30, 2011
Who is finally ready to get off their laurels and start looking at Oracle BPM 11g? I knew I was, the question I had was: where do I start? I figured the best place to start would be to actually install the software. A special thanks to one of our Systems Engineer, Les Harris who helped in getting me going on installing the software. I installed the entire Oracle BPM 11g stack on my laptop and documented the procedure. The following outline is not for a production install, but rather for getting a development environment up and running. A production install would be different and require different install packages as well as a few more steps. This install is strictly for setting up a development environment which is why I used the versions of the software listed below. Sorry I didn’t take screenshots, but I documented everything I did and using these steps I have been able to install multiple environments without issue.
The first thing I had to do was go and download all of the different install packages that comprise the Oracle BPM stack, those are:
- JRockit (JDK R28.1.4)
- Oracle Database (10G Express Edition – Universal)
- Oracle Repository Creation Utility (version 11.1.1.5.0)
- Oracle Web Logic Server (version 10.3.5)
- Oracle SOA Suite (version 11.1.1.5.0)
- Oracle JDeveloper Studio Edition (version 11.1.1.5)
Next I had to unzip all the packages that came zipped up. I recommend 7-zip or pretty much anything else that isn’t the built in Windows utility, that thing is just too slow for these large files.
Now it’s time to start installing.
1. Install JRockit. Since I’ll need to type the path a lot I installed it to C:\Java.
2. Install the database server. It’s a very typical install, I used all the defaults. Be sure to write down the sys account password.
a. After installed launch SQL plus and run the following commands to up the process count:
i. Connect
ii. Enter the credentials (username: sys as sydba, password: whatever you specified during your database install)
iii. alter system reset sessions scope=spfile sid=’*';
iv. alter system set processes=400 scope=spfile;
v. shutdown immediate
vi. startup
vii. exit
3. Install the RCU utility. This creates all the necessary components in the database.
a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:
i. Cd:\<path to RCU install>rcuhome\bin
ii. Set RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS=TRUE
iii. Rcu.bat
b. Use all the defaults, pointing it to the database server that was just installed (hostname = localhost, port = 1521, servicename = xe,)
i. You will see an error message about the database not being supported. Ignore it, this isn’t a production install.When prompted for which components to install select SOA at the top level in order to get all the other necessary requirements.
4. Install Web Logic Server. This is the underlying foundation upon which the application runs.
a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:
i. Cd:\<path to weblogic install>\
ii. C:\Java\Bin\Java.exe – jar wls1035_generic.jar
b. Select a custom install but choose all the defaults when prompted.
5. Install SOA. This is the meatiest part of the Fusion Middleware stack.
a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:
i. Cd:\ path to RCU install>\Disk1\
ii. Setup.exe –jreLoc c:\Java
b. Select all the defaults.
6. Create the SOA domain.
a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:
i. Cd:\oracle\middleware\oracle_SOA1\common\bin
ii. Config.cmd
b. When prompted select the ‘Create domain’ option
i. Select the BPM Suite for Development and Enterprise Manager option
ii. Select the Admin Server, Managed Servers, and Deployments options
7. Now it’s time to test the install out (this may take a while, be patient).
a. This must be done from the command line.
i. Cd:\ oracle\middleware\user_projects\domains\base_domain\
ii. Startweblogic.cmd
b. When the server is all done with its first start-up the command window should say something like: ‘SOA platform is now running and accepting requests’)
c. You can now close out the WebLogic server (CTRL+C)
8. Install JDeveloper
a. Use all the defaults
b. Once installed, launch JDeveloper Studio from the start menu (it will be under Oracle WebLogic)
c. Go to Help|Check for Updates
i. Select Next on the Source
ii. In the search box type in SOA and select the SOA update, then type in BPM and select the BPM update.
iii. Select Next, then Finish. When it is done, close out of JDeveloper.
9. Now it is time to create your very first BPM 11g project.
a. Launch JDeveloper Studio.
i. Select File|New
ii. In the prompt select Applications in the left pane and BPM Application in the right pane.
iii. Select OK
iv. Now you’ll be prompted to give your application a name, name it whatever you want or leave it default and select Next.
v. Now you’ll be prompted to give your Project a name, name it whatever you want or leave it default. Make sure BPM and SOA are selected form the list of available technologies. Select Next.
vi. Select the Composite with BPMN Process option and select Finish.
vii. You should now be prompted to create a BPMN process, just select Finish and you can start from there.
You should now be looking at an empty project with a Start and an End event. Here is where the fun begins…
John Linehan
Sr. Systems Engineer
ImageSource Inc.
Features in ILINX Capture (Part I)
September 2, 2011
The feature set in ILINX Capture is vast and it can be a drag reviewing and interpreting feature lists in software documentation. Those of you not familiar with ILINX Capture can visit the following website www.ilinxcapture.com, or feel free to leave a comment and we can provide additional information and/or a hands-on demonstration. In short, ILINX Capture is a web based capture platform that excels in distributed capture and custom capture workflow environments. It is scalable to work on a single workstation or it can be extended to an enterprise wide global standard for capture in your organization.
I wanted to use this post to touch on a couple of the features that I see being used more and more in ILINX Capture. These features became part of the product based on customer feedback, industry direction, and internal vision for the product. All of the following features can be added to any point in your process flow map, so it provides not only the functionality but also the flexibility to adapt to the business needs of current processes in place today.
- 2D Barcode Support
– This feature adds the ability to read metadata, classify and separate documents, and provide quality control checks through the recognition of 2D barcodes. Through a GUI the user has the ability to parse the barcode data and map it to fields, separate and identify the type of document, and validate that the number of pages in the document match what was captured through the scanning or electronic import process. - Web Service Integration
– This feature provides ILINX Capture with the ability to integrate with any existing web service. Most commonly, we see this used to perform database lookups or validations against existing line of business systems. Another way this is being utilized is to interact with different organization processes, for example, you can create a support ticket in an organization’s support system every time a process exception occurs in their fully automated capture workflow. - Queue Thresholds & Triggers
– Work queues in ILINX Capture are areas where human interaction is required to process data or documents through the workflow. The thresholds and triggers provide the ability to monitor the batches or documents in a queue and execute a function when a threshold or trigger is met. This is useful to monitor escalations or the processing of high priority documents. For example, if a fax comes in to the system for an auto loan or stock trade, in most cases, this is a time sensitive process that needs to move rapidly through the workflow. Between the notification features and the thresholds/triggers, ILINX Capture can ensure that 1) a user is notified that there is high priority work to process, 2) the documents are processed within a defined time frame, and 3) if the documents are not processed the system can notify a manager or route the documents to another user group.
These are just a few of the features that have been added to extend the functionality of this product. Stay tuned to this blog for additional information on other features that help shape this product to provide value to its customer community.
Ryan Keller ImageSource, Inc.eForms 101 part 2
February 12, 2011
A short while ago I wrote a blog entitled eForms 101…and I’d like to continue on the theme. I mentioned some of the main advantages of eForms – that they save money, are green, fast, accurate, malleable – and thus they improve customer service.
One of the real values of eForm use is that it can be coupled with a workflow. When a paper form arrives there is lots of processing time. Routing the form electronically takes a fraction of the time it takes to physically route paper. And tracking the progress of a routed paper form is slow and can be frustrating. Think of the last time you had to call a long chain of people looking for a piece of paper any of them may or may not have — woof. Again, an eForm that has been routed electronically using a workflow is easy to check up on. No calls. Just view the progress map and you can see who’s got the ball. And parallel workflow routing offers a way to speed up routing exponentially over physical counterpart processes. If an item is stuck in a queue or inbox too long, it can trigger alerts or can be automatically routed for processing. If I am the customer who submitted information to a company, that’s how I want my info taken care of!
In terms of return on investment (ROI), labor costs are obviously reduced because it is now quicker to locate a form, get it approved, share it widely or launch it through a specialized review path, etc. But beyond this is the less tangible benefit of making employees more productive overall. And the fact that ALL the ‘i’s are dotted and the ‘t’s are crossed with alacrity and quality control contributes greatly to improved decision making.
Now some thoughts on how to get going quickly. If this is an initial foray into eForms and workflows, I suggest the paper process to be replaced is simple and well understood. Paper forms can be reproduced electronically verbatim, so filling the form will be instantly intuitive to the user. Focus on high volume forms to cost justify the endeavor. If your goal is to take a process to the extreme in automation, be sure to take a phased approach. Basic form and workflow capabilities must come first, and must work perfectly. A tool always worth mentioning to get eForms up and running fast is Texcel FormBridge. Using a per page licensing fee, this tool allows you to convert paper or TIFs, or flat PDFs into eForms for a variety of products. What’s the big deal? Well, scan in a paper form filled with fields and watch FormBridge work. It identifies automagically where the fields go, and what their titles are. The eForm looks like the input form, nicely formatted. All the text in the form is editable – including field titles. And the same is true with all those scattered myriad rows of checkboxes. They are all converted to eForm checkboxes with proper labels. From paper to LiquidOffice eForm in the blink of an eye.
After you get a chance to review the business benefits of eForms in your organization, time to ask :
- Where is your organization right now on the paperless scale?
- Is paper use on the rise?
- Are services that impact customer satisfaction stalled due to cumbersome paper processes?
- Has your existing eForm initiative lost any momentum?
ImageSource is staffed to help you, with industry veterans including: Systems Engineers, Support Engineers, Developers, Project Managers, Sales Staff, and Senior Managers.
Oracle Content Management – IPM 11g Links
February 5, 2011
Looking for some useful links to information about installing Oracle IPM 11g? We have been performing successful Oracle IPM 11g implementations and will be providing useful information, as well as, tips and tricks on this blog.
Here are the main links that have been leveraging for some valuable information related to this next generation ECM Suite:
| Oracle Content Management Description | URL |
| Overview | http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/overview/index.html |
| Downloads | http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index.html |
| Documentation | http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/documentation/index.html |
| UCM 11g Downloads | http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index-085241.html |
| IPM 11g Downloads | http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index-ipm-088963.html |
eForms 101
December 14, 2010
I recently gave a presentation at our Nexus convention about eForms — and how they can produce real business value. Although the presentation was meant for those who have not spent much time analyzing the benefits of e-forms, some real industry heavyweights showed up. Unfortunately this was a lost opportunity because if I had more time I would’ve handed over the microphone for additional eForm paradigms and parables. Alas I had more material than time. Here’s a brief discussion of some of the topics I covered.
An eForm is of course an electronic representation of a paper form. In fact, many eForms look exactly like their paper counterpart. When a paper process goes electric, you’re not just leaving the paper behind. You are opening the door to processing times that are dramatically more expedient, and a host of other advantages.
Because of their inherent characteristics, eForms:
- save money
- When it can costs $20 to file a document and up to $314 per filing cabinet for the real state it consumes, you know storing paper isn’t cheap. And it can cost up to $220 to reproduce a lost document.
- are green
- Since the United States is the world’s largest producer and consumer paper, and for more than half of all organizations paper use is on the rise – the green choice is to reproduce paper processes electronically
- are malleable
- What if you just snail mailed one million requests for information and then discovered a fatal error in the text of your paper document. You can do the math here — it would be expensive to fix this, and slow. Online eForms can be changed in flash with very little effort or cost.
- are fast
- It’s true that performing optical character recognition is pretty quick. But that leaves out all the document preparation and scanning time, not to mention time spent correcting OCR errors. There are no OCR errors in eForms and processing is of course very very quick.
- are accurate
- eForms have a lot of advantages over paper forms in terms of accuracy. You can perform database lookups and provide extensive online help with links to vast information resources on the Internet or your intranet. But more importantly you can have script ensure that required fields are not skipped and that incorrectly formatted data is never entered. These days, you can just click a checkbox to perform a lot of validation checks within an e-form product.
- improve customer service
- Faster processing of customer data improves customer retention and satisfaction. Reduction of lost or compromised customer data inherently improves customer satisfaction. Money saved by converting a paper process to an electronic process can and oftentimes should be redirected toward customer satisfaction initiatives.
Before getting started on a new e-form project, it is wise to consider return on investment. Make sure that you have a justifiable volume for the effort. Then I think you should focus on forms with low complexity allowing everyone in the process to learn the ropes. There will be plenty of time in the future — probably the very near future — to ramp up the complexity because requests will likely pour in.
Please keep your eye open for a follow-up eForm 101 blog with a discussion of workflow integration, more thoughts on ROI, and some useful tools and techniques for ramping up quickly.
Nexus 2010
November 12, 2010
I recently attended the Technology conference put on by my company. Nexus®, as it is dubbed, is where we try to bring in all the local and national minds in our ECM space together. On the vendor side we had both hardware and software manufacturers represented. On the standards side we had credits offered for PMI, ARMA, AHIMA, and IAPP just by attending. There was pre-conference training on Oracle I/PM 11g, a risk management course, and an AIIM ECMp course. For the user community we had attendees from Fortune 50 companies down to small government agencies and everything in between. Sounds great right? It was.
As with any conference, you have to make it to the break out session that relate to you, and make connections with people that you can relate to. The latter was easy of course, we are all living and breathing the ECM world. Even if your content is different, the pain points are nearly always the same. It’s great to connect with others and find out their resolutions to similar issues, their approach to common problems, and to hear their success stories. Besides giving a presentation on our product ILINX® Integrate (something I have blogged about in the past), I also attended sessions on advanced document capture, ILINX Content Store, Oracle I/PM, and sessions on project management.
The breakout sessions had real value for me. The sharing of knowledge is essentially what Nexus is all about and the break outs are core to that. In years past, I have attended Nexus but allowed myself to do project work or provide technical support for the conference itself during the breakout sessions. This year I made it a point to attend as many sessions as possible and only missed two. I am confident I took the right approach.
I attended Shon Mueller’s presentation on advanced capture solutions and it was great. He was dynamic and brought a wealth of experience in his years at Kofax, ImagesSource, and other ECM technology companies. Jon Sutherland’s presentation on ILINX Content Store was informative for me as well. As a system’s engineer that’s busy in the field I haven’t had as much time as would like to work with our latest product offering. ILINX Content Store is a real solution for content management and I am quite confident we will see and hear more about it. Les Harris’ session on upgrading to Oracle I/PM 11g was an eye opener. I have worked extensively with the I/PM product line for many years and the new product accomplishes the same functions as all previous versions, but with an entirely new architecture. For those planning on sticking with the product it is time to start planning your upgrade path now. I also attended a session on project management in which Dennis Brooke discussed how to use Web 2.0 technologies to streamline project management and enhance project morale. The session sparked lots of questions form the audience and I could see the wheels turning as people thought how they could use these ideas in their own corporate structure. I worked with Dennis for many years and it was great to hear about some of the lessons learned and successes.
I have linked to all the presentations, please feel free to review them and all the other’s on the Nexus site. All in all Nexus 2010 was a success and I can’t wait to see what ImageSource puts together for next year.
Oracle IPM Invoice Processing Accelerators
August 16, 2010
Oracle is rolling out best-practice ERP AP invoice processing solution accelerators as part of their 11g Fusion Middleware offering. Called “adapters”, these ERP software components are available for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel.
The accelerators are a mechanism to ensure scanned invoices reach a backend ERP system for final handling even when there are issues in the invoice data gathered using OCR forms recognition during scanning. This allows for minimal user exception handling or intervention prior to each invoice arriving in the ERP system. The idea is to simply load the scanner with invoices, press a button, and then handle the invoices once they arrive in the backend.
In order for this approach to work, Oracle’s solution accelerators use XML documents to contain header and line invoice data. The XML documents are combined with business rules in an Oracle BPEL Process Manager workflow that automatically massages the data into a format that will be accepted by the ERP import functionality such as the Oracle EBS open interface table import. The invoice image resides in the Oracle IPM system.
In the case where data can’t be massaged sufficiently for insert, the invoice is keyed from image from within the BPEL workflow. Invoices that directly insert into the ERP system arrive either ready for validation, matching, payment, coding, etc., or are placed on hold with a hold code and a hold reason code. Some sample hold and reason codes are:
| FIELD | VALIDATION | HOLD | HOLD REASON |
| Purchase Order | PO must be valid and open. PO vendor must match invoice vendor. |
IPM_INVALID_PO_HOLD | INVALID PO NUM INACTIVE PO INCONSISTENT PO SUPPLIER |
| Supplier | Supplier is required. Supplier must exist in vendor master. Supplier ID and supplier site ID must match. |
IPM_INVALID_ SUPPLIER_HOLD |
NO SUPPLIER INVALID SUPPLIER INCONSISTENT SUPPLIER |
There are many more business rules that operate on each invoice inside of workflow that meet the requirements of the ERP system.
Oracle has created a flash demo of a scan to EBS process at:
Oracle has also created a PDF document that highlights the E-Business Suite Adapter:
As an Oracle partner, ImageSource has begun to implement these solutions in the field.
Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.




