Chapter 3. New features

This section highlights new features in Red Hat Process Automation Manager 7.10.

3.1. Business Central

3.1.1. Support for DMN 1.1 and 1.3 assets in DMN designer

You can now use the DMN designer in Business Central to open DMN 1.1 and 1.3 assets. Any DMN 1.1 and 1.3 models (do not contain DMN 1.3 features) that you import into Business Central, open in the DMN designer, and save are converted to DMN 1.2 models. For more information, see Designing a decision service using DMN models.

3.1.2. Test scenarios

The test scenarios designer in Business Central is now available with the following new features:

  • You can now perform the undo and redo operations from the Settings panel. Also, a warning pop-up is displayed when you save or discard any changes from the Settings panel.
  • In rule-based test scenarios, you can use the following new java classes as data objects:

    • LocalDateTime
    • LocalTime
    • BigDecimal
    • BigInteger
  • You can use Byte, Character, Float, Long, Short, LocalDateTime, LocalTime, BigDecimal, and BigInteger classes to create and manage the list of data object values.

For more information, see Testing a decision service using test scenarios.

3.1.3. New parameter list for Decision Services

Red Hat Process Automation Manager 7.10 includes a new Decision Service details section in the DMN editor properties panel containing a read-only list of Input Data, Encapsulated Decisions, and Output Decisions.

For more information, see Getting started with decision services and Designing a decision service using DMN models.

3.1.4. Dashbuilder Runtime

The following list provides a summary of Dashbuilder Runtime updates:

  • You can automatically deploy the dashboards from Business Central on Dashbuilder Runtime. Business Central is linked to Dashbuilder Runtime using a gradual export feature. You can select datasets and pages, but instead of downloading a ZIP file, you can click the Open button. After clicking the Open button, the selected data is exported, and Dashbuilder Runtime updates the model content. You can use dashbuilder.runtime.multi, dashbuilder.runtime.location, and dashbuilder.export.dir system properties to enable this feature.

    For more information, see Configuring Business Central settings and properties.

  • Dashboards that are imported in Dashbuilder Runtime contain a default page. The following are the updates of the Dashbuilder Runtime default page:

    • If an imported dashboard consists of only one page, then the page is used as the default page.
    • If a page is named as index, then the index page is used as the default page.
    • In other cases, the generic home page of the Dashbuilder Runtime is used as the default page.
  • Dashbuilder Runtime is now available with a new heatmap component feature. You can add the heatmap component to the pages and export it to the Dashbuilder Runtime. Heatmap components are used to display heat information over a process diagram, and you can create, edit, and build a dashboard using the heatmap component. The heat information is retrieved from KIE Server datasets.

    For more information, see Building custom dashboard widgets.

3.2. New standalone BPMN and DMN editors

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now provides standalone editors for Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) process models and Decision Model and Notation (DMN) decision models. The standalone editors enable you to view and design BPMN and DMN models embedded in your web applications. The read-only mode for standalone BPMN editor is not supported in Red Hat Process Automation Manager 7.10.0.

The standalone editors are distributed in a self-contained library that provides an all-in-one JavaScript file for each editor. The JavaScript file uses a comprehensive API to set and control the editor. You can install the standalone editors in two ways:

  • Download each JavaScript file manually
  • Use the NPM package

For more information, see Designing a decision service using DMN models and Designing business processes using BPMN models.

3.3. Support for VSCode extension

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now provides support for VSCode extension enabling you to view and design BPMN and DMN models in Visual Studio Code (VSCode). The VSCode extension in Red Hat Process Automation Manager requires VSCode 1.46.0 or later.

You can install the Red Hat Process Automation Manager VSCode extension using:

  • VSCode user interface

    1. Open Extensions menu option.
    2. Search for and install Red Hat Business Automation Bundle extension.
  • Terminal

    1. Launch VSCode Quick Open.
    2. Enter the following command and press Enter.

      ext install redhat.vscode-extension-red-hat-business-automation-bundle

For more information, see Designing a decision service using DMN models and Designing business processes using BPMN models.

3.4. Process Designer

3.4.1. Ability to access activity details in boundary events

In the BPMN modeler, you can now set a data output in the Data Output and Assignments field for a boundary event. For example, you can set nodeInstance as a data output variable for a boundary event, which carries the node instance details to use in a further process when the boundary event is triggered. For more information, see Designing business processes using BPMN models.

3.4.2. Support for MVEL expressions in data assignments

You can now add MVEL expressions in the data input and output assignments of a user task. For more information, see Designing business processes using BPMN models.

3.5. Process engine

3.5.1. Process engine API improvements

The following list provides a summary of the process engine API updates:

  • You can now use the process engine API to signal a process instance using its correlation key.
  • You can now use the process engine API to determine the node type from within an event listener.
  • When using the advanced query feature of the process engine API, you can now optionally exclude process variables from the search results.

For more information about using the process engine API, see Interacting with Red Hat Process Automation Manager using KIE APIs.

3.5.2. KIE API improvements

You can now use the KIE REST API to signal a process using its alias. For more information about using the KIE REST API, see Interacting with Red Hat Process Automation Manager using KIE APIs.

3.5.3. Singleton timer start node

The process engine now supports the singleton timer start node in a process with the cluster extension. When the extension is configured and a process is deployed in several instances, the timer start node is only triggered once among all instances.

3.6. New wrapper modules

Red Hat Process Automation Manager 7.10 now includes wrapper modules that you can use to reduce overhead and improve the maintenance of Drools engine. There is an ongoing effort to refactor Drools engine by identifying and descoping optional features that are unrelated to the internal algorithm of the engine. Drools engine uses MVEL for DRL parsing, constraints evaluation, and templates generation. Usages of MVEL are isolated in a new drools-mvel module. Drools engine implements KieSessions serialization with protobuf to ensure better backward compatibility. This serialization feature is isolated in the drools-serialization-protobuf module.

You can add drools-mvel and drools-serialization-protobuf modules to your project classpath.

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now provides the following new wrapper modules:

  • drools-engine: Contains drools-core, drools-compiler, and drools-model-compiler dependencies
  • drools-engine-classic: Contains drools-core, drools-compiler, and drools-mvel dependencies

To use the Drools engine with the executable model, you must include the drools-engine wrapper module in your project dependencies. To use the Drools engine without the executable model, you must import your dependencies to the drools-engine-classic wrapper module.

3.7. Integration

3.7.1. Integration with AMQ Streams

You can now integrate your business processes that run on a KIE Server with Red Hat AMQ Streams or Apache Kafka. Processes can send and receive Kafka messages using message events. A KIE Server can emit Kafka events when a process, case, or task completes.

For more information about integration with Red Hat AMQ Streams or Apache Kafka, see Integrating Red Hat Process Automation Manager with Red Hat AMQ Streams.

3.7.2. Support for client roles in Red Hat Single Sign-On

When integrating Red Hat Process Automation Manager with Red Hat Single Sign-On, you can enable support for client roles. By default, only realm roles are supported.

For more information about integration with Red Hat Single Sign-On, see Integrating Red Hat Process Automation Manager with Red Hat Single Sign-On.

3.8. KIE Server

3.8.1. Running job failover

If you have multiple KIE Server nodes in a cluster and one node fails while a job is in a running state, the jobs in that instance are requested to another running node.

3.9. Spring Boot

3.9.1. Pluggable variable persistence

You can now provide an arbitrary entity manager for configured process variable persistence in your Red Hat Process Automation Manager Spring Boot application.

3.10. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

3.10.1. Support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform version 4.7

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now supports Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform version 4.7 and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform version 4.6 EUS.

For more information, see Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Life Cycle Policy and Red Hat OpenShift Extended Update Support (EUS) Overview.

3.10.2. Support for Dashbuilder Standalone on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now supports Dashbuilder Standalone (Dashbuilder Runtime) on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

3.10.3. Support for LDAP login module stacking

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now supports LDAP login module stacking. You can set the AUTH_LDAP_LOGIN_MODULE environment variable to optional for LdapExtended login module images.

3.10.4. Configurable persistent volume sizes for Business Central

Red Hat Process Automation Manager now supports configurable persistent volume sizes for Business Central. The default is 1Gi for Business Central and 64Mb for Business Central Monitoring.