Business Process Levels

You can modify your options within the business process levels, such as document tracking, document storage, and BP queuing.

Document Tracking
Select this option if you want documents involved in this process model to be trackable according to the document tracking settings you have configured. Document tracking at the business process level is disabled by default, and this setting overrides the global document tracking setting. If you are not using Sterling B2B Integrator document tracking features, leave the option disabled, to reserve system resources for other tasks.
Set onfault processing
Select this option to the enable on-fault activity specified in the process to immediately execute in the event of a system error.
Set Queue
Sterling B2B Integrator enables you to set performance optimizations by queue, defining queue levels the system uses to allocate resources. Select the queue level that you want for this business process model for processing. The default value is 4.
Use BP Queuing
If selected, the bp is placed in a bp queue for processing. This is the default and recommended method. To run the bp in BP Non-Queued mode, clear the checkbox. In BP Non-Queued mode, however, the persistence level for the bp is Zero by default, so the process cannot be manually restarted or resumed.
Enable Transaction
Select this option to instruct Sterling B2B Integrator to treat the entire process as a single transaction so that either all of the steps complete, or, in the event of an error, none of them do. When an error occurs, no data is committed; data returns to its pre-process state.
Note: Enabling transactions applies only to services that support transaction mode. See the reference information for specific services to determine whether this option is supported.

By default, this transaction mode is not enabled.

Note: If transaction management is already built into the process model (the model includes Start and End Transaction services), do not select this option or the process will fail.
Commit All Steps when there is an error
Use only when the Enable Transaction field is checked. The default is selected (set to true).

When a business process runs with the Enable Transaction option set to true, and an error occurs, all steps up to the error step are committed if this field (Commit All Steps when there is an error) is set to true.

If you clear the checkbox for this field (set it to false), all the steps up to the error step are rolled back, with the exception of the first step (initial workflowcontext), and the error step.

If all of the operations in the error step are transactional, they are also rolled back. For example, if there is a Lightweight JDBC service in a business process that uses dbpool, and the Lightweight JDBC service is using dbpool_local, then the operation is not rolled back because it is non-transactional.

Category
You can optionally enter a category name to which this process model belongs, creating the category. The category does not affect processing; categories are for future product enhancements.
Persistence Level
The persistence level options enable you to specify, at the business process level, the types of data to retain in the database for the process whenever it runs. Persisted data can be crucial to process recovery in the event of errors and is useful for monitoring and tracking activities, including generating status reports. Persisted data may include any of the following types of data:
  • Status information for the steps in the process, which is comprised of:

    - General status information for the steps (start and stop time, step name)

    - Error information for failed steps

    - Data describing the start and stop conditions of the process

  • Process data
  • Documents associated with the process

The types of data persisted for a process depends on the activities the process involves (such as whether the process has documents associated with it) and your persistence level settings.

Persistence can also be set globally (at the system level) for all processes; by default this is set to FULL persistence, although it may have been customized for your installation. If your installation uses the default FULL persistence for the system, you generally do not need to change persistence at the business process level unless you are seeking performance improvements. For the process model you are checking in, your selection here overrides the global persistence level set in the properties file.

Note: Two exceptions may affect your persistence selection. First, remember that some services support only a limited selection of persistence settings, regardless of the level of persistence you assign to the process model. Second, any persistence overrides configured in the BPML for steps in the process model override the setting you make here for the specified step or steps.

Choose the option that provides the type of data you need for monitoring, tracking, and recovery in the event of a failure. Remember that persisting data can slow system processing by filling up the database. Consider your archive and purge settings in addition to the amount and type of data you intend to persist.

For a detailed description of persistence setting options, see Business Process Persistence OptionsBusiness Process Persistence Options.

Event Reporting Level
Select the level of events to generate for this process. Events are actions that occur within the system, such as adapters starting and stopping, business process status or state changes, and errors and exceptions, that are configured to generate event data. Sterling B2B Integrator uses events for various features, such as event-driven notifications.
Note: Full event reporting is recommended to ensure that all of your system features operate correctly. Minimal or no event reporting settings are options that can improve system performance in some specialized circumstances; however, you should use these options only upon recommendation from IBM® Customer Support, when Support has determined that features dependent on events are not needed.

The levels are:

  • Full – Generate all configured events for the business process, including the business process start and end time, start and end times for all services or adapters running as a result of this business process, and any resulting errors and exceptions.
  • Minimal – Generate events for the business process, including the business process start and end time and any resulting errors and exceptions.
  • None – Do not generate any event reporting. This is the default.
Recovery Level
Select the level of recovery for this business process if the business process is interrupted during execution. The levels are:
  • Auto Resume – Resume the business process at the last point at which the business process was persisted. Go to the next step as if the step that was interrupted was successful.
  • Auto Resume with Error – Goes to the next step as if the step that was interrupted was an error. This allows you to perform a roll-back if a non-transactional service is interrupted.
  • Auto Restart – Terminate the current business process and restart it from the beginning.
  • Terminate – Terminate the business process.
  • Manual – Take no action automatically. With this option, you must resume or restart the business process manually. This is the default selection.
Document Storage
Select the document storage type for document payload data written when the business process runs. The options are:
  • Database – Store documents in the database. Use this option for small documents or when clustering without a clustered file system.
  • File System – Store documents in the file system. This option may be best for large documents (over 10 MB). Using this method, you must handle archiving and purging the documents from your file system.
Note: Archiving and purging from the file system may require special handling.
  • System Default – Use the option configured in the jdbc.properties file. This is the default document storage setting for process models. As shipped, Database is the document storage type configured in the jdbc.properties file; it may be modified for your installation to use the file system.
  • Inherited – When one document is created as a result of another, the new document uses the previous document's storage type.
Enable BP Execution Settings
This option displays only when you are using a clustered Sterling B2B Integrator environment. Select this option to display the available choices for specifying the node to run the process on. If you do not specify a node, the system uses any available node. To select a node:
  1. In the Select Node field, select the node on which you want the process to run.
  2. In the Execution Node Specific field, specify whether the process must run on the selected node or can use others. Options are:

    Preferred Node – Run the process on the selected node unless the node is unavailable (inactive for some reason).

    Mandatory Node – Always run the process on the selected node (if the node is unavailable for some reason, the process will fail).

Note: The Execution Role Specific field is reserved for future use.