With Camunda, you can visually create workflows and integrate these in your APEX app.

1. Affordable Workflow Options
for your APEX App
Niels de Bruijn
March 30th, 2017

2. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 2
Facts & Figures
Independent Technology House
with Cross-Industry Expertise
Headquarter
Ratingen
(North Rhine – Westphalia)
240
employed
Founded
1994
Branches
Dortmund, Cologne,
Frankfurt am Main
Top Company
for Trainees &
Students
Privately-
Owned
Corporation
Oracle
Platinum
Partner
28 Mio. Euro
Revenue

3. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 3
About me
§ Niels de Bruijn, Business Unit Manager APEX
§ Born in 1977, married, three daughters, living in Ratingen
§ Working for MT AG since DEC-2003
§ After working for 2 years as Oracle consultant for Oracle Nederland B.V.
§ Track record with APEX since its inception
§ Responsible for all APEX activity in the company
§ Knowledge Portal: apex.mt-ag.com
§ Presenting at Kscope, DOAG Conference, APEX Connect and Open World amongst others
§ ODTUG - Part of APEX Content Committee for Kscope
§ DOAG – Initiator & Conference Chair of APEX Connect

4. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ About workflow in APEX
§ Affordable workflow options for your APEX app
§ Spotlight: APEX & Camunda Community Edition
§ How it works
§ Live Demo
§ Modelling your workflow with bpmn.io
§ What did we learn?
Agenda

5. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ Which workflow?! There simply is no workflow feature in APEX (up to 5.1).
§ Also nothing planned for APEX 5.2
§ First thought: Hardcoding your workflow with PL/SQL (DON‘T DO THIS!)
§ Option 1: Define your workflow definition in tables
§ PL/Flow
§ Flow Control
§ Option 2: Integrate Camunda
5
Affordable workflow options for your APEX app

6. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ PL/Flow from Yeb Havinga (http://plflow.sourceforge.net)
+ Easy to install, 100% PL/SQL incl. PL/SQL API
+ Open Source
- No graphical interface to maintain the workflow
- Not standardized (no BPMN support)
- No updates since its last release in 2004
§ Flow Control from Jürgen Sieben (https://github.com/j-sieben/FCT)
+ Easy to install, 100% PL/SQL incl. PL/SQL API
+ Open Source
+ Released in JUN-2016, actively maintained by Jürgen Sieben
- No graphical interface to maintain the workflow
- Not standardized (no BPMN support)
6
Option 1: Workflow definition in tables

7. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 7
APEX & Flow Control: Live Demo

8. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
What if your requirements go one step further?
§ BPMN 2.0 support
§ Graphical Interface (both design-time as well as run-time) to document the process incl. manual steps
§ Tool to monitor processes
§ Support-Option available
8
Option 2: Workflow definition in BPMN (WYSIWYG)

9. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ Camunda as run-time Engine (camunda.org)
§ Fork of activiti
§ Regularly updated
§ Large team working on it (HQ based in Berlin)
§ Open Source
§ Supports various standards like BPMN 2.0, CMMN 1.1 and DMN 1.1
§ Available in two editions: free Community Edition & Enterprise Edition
9
Option 2: Camunda Community Edition
Source: camunda.com (3-MAR-2017)

10. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ Some usefull (Java) Apps can be installed to monitor processes, administrate users, etc.
10
Option 2: Camunda Community Edition

11. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 11
APEX & Camunda: Live Demo Run-Time

12. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 12
APEX and Camunda: how it works
Optional:
Camunda Apps
(ie. Cockpit)
ORDS
REST-API
APEX
Workspace Schema
APEX
Metadata Repository
Camunda
Metadata Repository
Oracle DatabaseBrowser
read-out
process status
initiate
process
Apache Tomcat
bpmn-viewer.js

13. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ REST Web Service call
§ All logic stays in APEX: we tell Camunda what to do in which case
13
APEX and Camunda: instantiating a process with APEX
my_process

14. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
1. Read out the BPMN definition (XML file) from the metadata repository
select gby.bytes_
from act_ge_bytearray gby
, act_re_procdef rpf
where gby.deployment_id_ = rpf.deployment_id_
and rpf.key_ = 'recruitment-procedures'
order by rpf.version_ desc
fetch first 1 rows only
2. Use bpmn-viewer.js to render the process (SVG)
14
APEX and Camunda: show process status

15. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
3. Use custom JavaScript to highlight current state:
//Highlight current status
function markUp(temp){
var parent = document.getElementById(temp);
parent.childNodes[0].childNodes[0].setAttribute("style", "stroke: #056693; stroke-
width: 4; fill: #b5e6fd");
}
var dlCheck = $('#P2_DL').val(); //P2_DL contains the PK of the APEX table
if (dlCheck != ''){
var element = $('#P2_ST').val() //P2_ST contains the CSS ID of the element
markUp(element);
};
15
APEX and Camunda: show process status

16. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ APEX user is passed to Camunda for auditing purposes
select hi.proc_def_key_ as Process_Definition
, hi.proc_inst_id_ as Process_Key
, hi.assignee_ as Approved_By
, hi.act_name_ as Task
, hi.start_time_ as Start_Time
, hi.end_time_ as End_Time
, apx.candidate as Candidate
from act_hi_actinst hi
, act_ru_variable ru
, act_apx_cam_variable apx
where hi.proc_inst_id_ = ru.proc_inst_id_
and apx.id = ru.text_
and hi.act_type_ = 'userTask'
and ru.name_ = 'id'
order by hi.start_time_ desc
;
16
APEX and Camunda: show history

17. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 17
About BPMN 2.0
See all on
https://camunda.org/bpmn/reference/

18. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ https://bpmn.io
§ Open Source Tool to model your workflows
§ Works locally in your browser or can be part of your app
§ Your work is saved in BPMN 2.0 (XML)
18
Modelling your workflow with bpmn.io

19. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App 19
bpmn.io: Live Demo

20. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ Web Service call
20
Deploying a new process using a REST client in Chrome

21. Affordable Workflow Options for Your APEX App
§ There is no workflow feature in APEX 5.x and nothing such is planned for the near future
§ Use Workflow Control if
§ you don‘t need BPMN 2.0 support
§ you don‘t need to visualize or graphically design the workflow
§ Otherwise go for Camunda Community Edition
§ It integrates seemlessly with APEX and doesn‘t cost you anything (other than time)
§ Supports all standards (so you can migrate to another product if needed)
§ Enables you to visualize and graphically design your workflow process
21
What did we learn?

22. @nielsdb
http://de.linkedin.com/in/nielsdebruijn
https://blog.mt-ag.com/apex