1.2. What's New in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.2

JavaScript can now be used as a dialect in scripts (script task and on-entry, on-exit scripts) and for constraints (such as gateways). Same as with the Java and MVEL dialect, you can now have direct access to variables, globals, and to the kcontext variable. For details, see Script Task.

Support for asynchronous continuation is added that simplifies usage of asynchronous processing of process activities. Marking process activity as asynchronous instructs the engine to complete current processing (including committing transaction) before entering that activity. This in turn allows more control over what is executed in sequence and improve overall manageability of process execution.

Improved support for signaling process instances. A new scope attribute has been added for events to define if a signal is to be considered internal (only for one process instance) or external (for all process instances that are waiting).

The new scope data input is an optional property implemented to provide the following scope of throw events:

For details, see Scope of Events.

Improved search capabilities when using JBoss BPM Suite services (RuntimeDataService) that allows:

For details, see Supported Methods.

Asynchronous throw event is introduced that individually signals each process instance in the background. This avoids the situation where failing of one process instance affects all the other sequentially process instances waiting for the same signal. For details, see Asynchronous Execution.

A new wrapper API is introduced that exposes the Case Management concepts. The core process engine contains the flexibility to model adaptive and flexible processes. The new wrapper API simplifies picking up some of these advanced features. Note that this API relies on other existing features/APIs and can easily be extended. For details, see Case Management.

The remote REST API now allows you to retrieve an image that represents the status of a particular process instance, annotated on the process diagram. This generates the same image as the one in the Business Central's process instance diagram (active nodes marked with a red border and completed nodes with a gray background). The image is automatically generated based on the SVG of the process diagram when you save a process.

For details, see Remote REST API for Accessing Process Status Diagram.

The remote clients kie-remote-client for accessing the workbench embedded in the workbench and kie-server-client for the separate (unified) execution server are now also available as an OSGi feature.

The Process Designer includes a new dialog for editing data inputs and outputs on activities in business processes. The dialog combines the functions of the dialogs in previous versions of the process designer for editing data inputs and outputs, and for defining assignments between data inputs/outputs and process variables. The dialog allows you to:

The dialog is accessed by editing the Assignments property for activities which have this property, such as User Tasks, or by editing the DataInputAssociations or DataOutputAssociations property for activities which have one of these properties. The dialog is also available by clicking on a new button associated with those activities for which it is relevant: For details, see Assignment.

A fully featured unified KIE execution server based on the successful KIE execution server released with JBoss BPM Suite 6.1. In the 6.2 version, this execution server has been enhanced with support for rules and processes (including user tasks and asynchronous jobs). It provides lightweight mechanism for executing your business assets. You can build a number of environments with it, such as:

It can run on almost any container where the tested configuration includes the following:

For details, see The Realtime Decision Server.

The process and task lists screens of Business Central are now backed up by the DataSet APIs and data providers. This enable these runtime screens to retrieve the data in a much more efficient way and enable the users to apply more advanced filters. For details, see Process Instances and User Tasks.

A new locking mechanism has been introduced in Business Central to avoid conflicts when editing assets. This ensures that only one user at a time can edit an asset. An asset is automatically locked when a user opens it to edit and the lock is released as soon as the user saves or closes the asset. The feature also allows you to force unlock a locked asset in case you want to edit a file locked by another user. For details, see Asset Locking SUpport.

The JBoss BPM configurations, persistence, and advanced configurations are now moved into tool windows in Business Central. These advanced configurations in tool windows provide context aware screens. Each screen contains a domain editor that manages a set of related Data Object parameters. For details, see Data Models.

The data modeler is extended to support the generation of persistable Data Objects. The persistable Data Objects are based on the JPA specification and all the underlying metadata are automatically generated. For details, see Data Models.

Business Central now offers a new perspective for authoring data set definitions. Data set definitions make it possible to retrieve data from external systems like databases, CSV/Excel files or even use a Java class to generate the data. Once the data is available, it can be used to create charts and dashboards from the Perspective Editor.

JBoss BPM executor is enhanced to provide support for JMS based notification mechanism to improve performance for immediate job execution. Instead of relying on poll based mechanism, the executor is notified via JMS in case of an immediate job request.