Introduction

This article is based on experience gained while working on an enterprise Business Process Management solution for a Fortune 500 company. The article provides details about IBM® WebSphere® Business Modeler Publishing Server V6, explains how to use use Modeler Publishing Server to publish and review models, and describes how to integrate WebSphere Business Modeler 6.0.1 with Modeler Publishing Server.

This article is based on following products:

• WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 (hereafter referred to as Modeler Publishing Server)
• WebSphere Business Modeler (Advanced) 6.0.1 (hereafter referred to as Modeler)
• WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment 6.0.2
• WebSphere Portal Server for Multiplatform 5.1.0.2
• Lotus Domino Server 6.5.4
• IBM Tivoli Directory Server 5.2

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Modeler Publishing Server architecture

Modeler Publishing Server's Architecture (see Figure 1) incorporates WebSphere Portal, several Domino Server databases, Tivoli Directory Server for LDAP, and WebSphere Business Modeler. WebSphere Business Modeler provides an integrated publishing client that is responsible for publishing models to the Modeler Publishing Server. The LDAP repository is used to setup and administer security (authentication and entitlements) for Modeler Publishing Server users. Users access business process models that have been designated as "Released" or "draft" via a Web browser that is issuing calls against the publishing server that is deployed on WebSphere Portal Server. All users are required to download and install a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Plug-in to view process modeling artifacts residing in the Modeler Publishing Server.

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Modeler Publishing Server functions

This section describes various benefits of using publishing server in the model review process.

Figure 2 outlines the entire model review process using Modeler and Modeler Publishing Server. It describes Modeler and Modeler Publishing Server functionality in brief, with details of how different publishing server roles can utilize Modeler and Modeler Publishing Server for effective model review.

On demand inputs from the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and process experts

Business model review is critical for processes that involve multiple people within an enterprise or geographically dispersed worldwide. Inputs from subject matter experts or process experts are key to capturing process details and intricacies.

Since WebSphere Business Modeler is a tool for business modeling, reporting, and IT artifact generation, typically the knowledge of the product and its capabilities is limited to either select business analysts and modelers or IT analysts and integration specialists. Modeler Publishing Server lets you publish models developed in WebSphere Business Modeler so that resources with little or no experience with WebSphere Business Modeler 6.0.1 skills can view and comment on the models. Published models are viewed in a browser as opposed to printing the model in .pdf format or sending the model to reviewers in its native format. Several factors that prohibit efficient process model review and validation, are: organizational structure, location, and resource schedules. Process experts or subject matter experts often encounter difficulties when trying to interact with the modeling team to conduct process model validation. Modeler Publishing Server provides flexibility to SME's or process experts to view and validate the model by making model available to them via an on-demand basis.

Smarter and more efficient review process

Modeler Publishing Server V6.0.1 compliments WebSphere Business Modeler V6.0.1 by providing a mechanism to publish business processes, organization diagrams, resource catalogs, and business items from WebSphere Business Modeler V6.0.1. Modeler Publishing Server provides a Web interface where models can be viewed, reviewed, and administered. This capability supports the development, documentation, and review of business process models on an enterprise and worldwide scale.

Helps IT by implementing the solution faster

Modeler Publishing Server supports the following roles: reviewer, publisher, administrator, and viewer. These roles can be assigned to multiple people.

When modeling processes that are deemed executable and are ear marked to provide business automation capabilities, then it is extremely beneficial to involve technical staff members to review process models and artifacts as early as possible in the business process modeling life cycle. Modeler Publishing Server provides the platform to accomplish this task. Technical staff like architects, designers, and developers can be assigned the role of viewer or in some cases role of the reviewer. This enables the IT staff to view models independent of business analysts or SME's. IT resources are empowered to understand process, ask appropriate questions earlier that will facilitate building a more robust executable model. Collaboration between IT resources, modeling team, and experts will reduce the gap between modeling for documentation and modeling for execution.

Let's examine a few examples of IT inputs for a better understanding (This is separate discussion in itself, which is out of scope of this article).

Example 1: Identify and eliminate the cyclic paths

Example 2: Identify the service components

Helps enterprise to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley operational compliance

In Modeler Publishing Server, matured projects result from the inputs of business experts and SMEs. Matured project track all of the data for a process and its elements in the form of comments, descriptions, and attachments. This project medium serves as an excellent source for auditing, provides insight into business operations, and displays the model in its current state. Since publishing server portlets can be accessed from a browser, interested parties can track the business process review and provide guidelines, as well as more input to achieve more effective internal control. Modeler Publishing Server thus provides a way to achieve Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which mandates that adequate internal controls must exist to ensure compliance.

In a service-oriented architecture that provides support for business process choreography, tasks in the Modeler will be implemented as a service. Business traceability provides a direct link of all runtime artifacts of a step into a language that a non-technical domain expert can understand. WebSphere Publishing Server lets people view IT services in a technology neutral manner; as a result, business traceability is achieved within the enterprise.

A more accurate process model

SMEs or process experts provide suggestions and additional inputs to the model on an on-going basis. Based on these inputs, the modeling team updates the model and republishes it to the Modeler Publishing Server. Collaboration between the modeling team and experts provides model accuracy.

Training tool

Matured projects witin Modeler Publishing Server carry rich information about organizational process. Modeler Publishing Server stores all of the information, comments, suggestions, and attachments discovered during the review process. Since published models can be easily viewed in a Web browser, business functionality is easily consumed by disparate resources.

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Modeler Publishing Server setup options

The following section highlights options that can be selected during the setup of the Modeler Publishing Server.

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Configuration steps to publish models from Websphere Business Modeler 6.0.1 to Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1

You can use the following steps to publish models from Websphere Business Modeler to Modeler Publishing Server.

1. Start WebSphere Business Modeler 6.0.1.
2. Choose Windows => preferences and expand Business modeling. Select Publisher Settings and click Add. See Figure 7.
3. Enter the name (Any Name, for example: MyCollaborationServer).
4. Enter the server address: X.X.XX.XXX. See Figure 8.
5. Enter the port number: XXXX.
6. Enter the userId, for example: userId: uid=xxxxx,cn=users,dc=ibm,dc=com
7. Enter the password XXXX.
8. Click Finish, then click Apply.
9. Click OK to close window.

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How to publish a Modeler project from WebSphere Business Modeler 6.0.1 to Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1

Use these steps to publish a Modeler project from WebSphere Business Modeler to Modeler Publishing Server.

1. Open the project to be published in Modeler.
2. Right-click in the project tree window and click Publish.
3. Publish the model on the publishing server.
4. The administrator logs in on the publishing server using a Web URL. The administrator sets up access rights so that only particular reviewers (users) can see particular parts of model.

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Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 roles

Modeler Publishing Server supports the following roles to perform various functions.

• Publisher. The person performing this role identifies which publishing server will host the business process being reviewed, what parts of the process will be published, and then sends the information to the server.
• Administrator. Performs functions such as setting user permissions to parts of models, setup access permissions to groups, release published projects, delete parts of or entire project as needed etc.
• Reviewer or Commenter. Add comments, responses, and attachments to project elements.
• Viewer. A viewer can only read project elements.

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Organization roles and Modeler Publishing Server role mapping

This section describes how the organization roles involved in the model review process are mapped to publishing server functionality roles. Every organization has its own structure and IT strategy. The following metrics describe generalized mappings that can vary depending on the IT strategy of the organization and the technical and functional knowledge of the individuals involved in the model review process.

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Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 Web User Interface

This section provide details about the Modeler Publisher Server Web UI. The following screen is displayed when the user logs into the publishing server porlet. This common porlet provides access to the different publishing server roles. All the modeling projects that are undergoing review can be accessed using the "Review draft projects" link. All the modeling projects that have finished review and are matured can be accessed using the "Explore released projects" link. Administration portlet links "Administer draft project" and "Administrator released projects" allow the administrator to maintain or delete drafts and matured projects.

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Setup security for published models

This section describes how Modeler Publishing Server provides user authorization and authentication for the published model. An administrator of the publishing server is responsible for enabling who has access to a particular element of the model as shown in the Figure 10 below.

User authentication

Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 delegates authentication and the maintenance of users and groups to the LDAP (Tivoli Directory Server 5.2 in our case). This means that the Publishing Server administrator cannot create, delete, or modify users or groups from the administration side of the Draft and Released portals. The LDAP Administrator performs user maintenance.

User authorization

The Modeler Publishing Server administrator sets up user access to published projects by defining the access rights of users and groups. For each user or group, the publishing server maintains the access rights to each project or model element.

When a user is assigned to a group, the user inherits the access rights of the group. However, the administrator can override the inherited access rights to set specific rights for a user.

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Reviewer view

This screen is widely used by reviewers. Reviewers can view particular elements of a model as per their access rights and add comments, suggestions, and attachments.

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Republishing model and how it works

This section lists the republishing behavior between the modeler and publishing server. Republishing is an important step in the review process. Modeling teams make model changes per suggestions given by SMEs or process experts. Republishing provides a way to publish the changes on Modeler Publishing Server so that new changes are visible online.

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How to release the matured draft projects

When all of the inputs given by different roles are consolidated and a model reaches a stable position, the Modeler draft project becomes a matured project. An Administrator can move such projects to matured portal database. These projects will be then viewed under the Released Projects view.

The Modeler Publishing Server Administrator can also delete projects that are no longer needed.

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Additional considerations

The following issues were encountered while installing and configuring Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1. The solution for each problem is given.

Setup needs on the client browser to view Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 portlets

The SVG browser plug-in needs to be installed on client browsers to view diagram portlets properly.

Mapping LDAP groups and users during the installation

The Modeler Publishing Server Installation Screen is very important. This screen basically maps whatever groups and users are present at the moment in LDAP to the Publishing Server. This information cannot be updated later. Verify that all the groups are setup properly in LDAP before starting the Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 installation. Once this screen is completed, groups created ad hoc in LDAP won't be reflected in Modeler Publishing Server. At this point, the only workaround is to uninstall and re-install Modeler Publishing Server (choosing proper groups in the following screen).

Cannot create DB2 database using IBM Directory Server 5.2 directory configuration utility

To create an LDAP repository in the DB2 database using the Admin Utility, verify the DB2 version is update to the latest fix pack. If you have DB2 8.1, make sure to apply, at least fix pack 10, on this version.

Cannot import LDIF file using IBM Directory Server 5.2 directory configuration utility

Check the lDIF file. The main reason for this is that the first line (version: 1) is commented (#). Make sure you remove # from first line.

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Conclusion

Allowing users to visualize and comment on a business process model and associated artifacts is an important iterative step in any project that utilizes business process modeling. In this article, the Modeler Publishing Server's key features were highlighted to demonstrate how the product can facilitate process model reviews. The article also discusses how to integrate Websphere Business Modeler 6.0.1 and Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1. The different roles that Modeler Publishing Server supports were identified and how these roles map to an organizational structure and help in performing day-to-day activities. Several installation items and configuration options were mentioned and the administration of Modeler Publishing Server was addressed.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions and support from Sean Sundberg and Clara C. Liang.

Resources

Learn

• Modeler Publishing Server 6.0.1 and WebSphere Business Modeler 6.0.1 InfoCenter
  
  
• IBM Directory Server 5.2 InfoCenter
  
  
• Lotus Domino Documentation
  
  
• WebSphere Portal 5.* InfoCenter
  
  
• WebSphere business integration zone
  
  
• WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Integration Developer resource page
  
  

Get products and technologies

• Download IBM product evaluation versions and get your hands on application development tools and middleware products from DB2®, Lotus®, Rational®, Tivoli®, and WebSphere®.
  
  

Discuss

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About the authors

Comments (Undergoing maintenance)

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Table of contents

• Introduction
• Modeler Publishing Server architecture
• Modeler Publishing Server functions
• Modeler Publishing Server setup options
• Modeler configuration
• Publish Model
• Modeler Publishing Server roles
• Organization roles and Modeler Publishing Server roles mapping
• Publishing Server UI
• Model security
• Review model
• Republish model
• Release matured projects
• Additional considerations
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgement
• Resources
• About the authors
• Comments

Next steps from IBM

• Try: WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced
• Briefing: Building SOA solutions and managing the service lifecycle
• Buy: WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced

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