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BPEL Activities

Author: Gangadhar

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BPEL Activities

Assign Activity:

* For data manipulation, e.g copy.

* Target node operations:

- Expression: Drag this icon to a target node to invoke the Expression Builder dialog for

assigning an XPath expression to that node.

- Literal (BPEL 2.0) or XML fragment (BPEL 1.1): Drag this icon to a target node to invoke

a dialog for assigning a literal or XML fragment to that target node.

- Remove: Drag this icon to a target node to create a bpelx:remove extension rule.

- Rename: Drag this icon to rename a target node. This adds a bpelx:rename extension rule

with an elementTo attribute.

- Recast: Drag this icon to recast a target node. This adds a bpelx:rename extension rule with

a typeCastTo attribute. This results in an xsi:type attribute in the XML output.

Assert Activity:

* This activity enables you to perform an assertion on a specified expression.

* This is a standalone activity in which to specify assertions.

* You can also specify assertions from the Assertions tab in invoke activities, receive

activities, and the onMessage branch of pick and scope activities.

* Supported in BPEL 1.1 projects only.

Bind Entity Activity:

* This activity enables you to select the entity variable to act as the data handle to access and

plug in different data provider service technologies.

* Supported in BPEL 1.1 projects only.

Compensate Activity:

* This activity invokes compensation on an inner scope activity that has successfully

completed.

* This activity can be invoked only from within a fault handler or another compensation

handler.

* Compensation occurs when a process cannot complete several operations after completing

others.

* The process must return and undo the previously completed operations.

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Compensate Scope Activity:

* This activity enables you to start compensation on a specified inner scope that has already

completed successfully.

* This activity must only be used from within a fault handler, another compensation handler,

or a termination handler.

* Supported in BPEL 2 projects only.

Create Entity Activity:

* This activity enables you to create an entity variable.

* The entity variable can be used with an Oracle ADF Business Component data provider

service using SDO-based data.

Dehydrate Activity:

* The dehydrate activity enables you to explicitly specify a dehydration point.

* This activity acts as a dehydration point to automatically maintain long-running

asynchronous processes and their current state information in a database while they wait for

asynchronous callbacks.

* Storing the process in a database preserves the process and prevents any loss of state or

reliability if a system shuts down or a network problem occurs.

* This feature increases both BPEL process reliability and scalability.

Email Activity:

* This activity enables you to send an email notification about an event.

Empty Activity:

* Inserts a no-operation instruction into a process.

Exit Activity:

* Immediately end all currently running activities on all parallel branches without involving

any termination handling, fault handling, or compensation handling mechanisms.

Flow Activity:

* Specify one or more activities to be performed concurrently.

* A flow activity completes when all activities in the flow have finished processing (or

skipped).

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FlowN Activity:

* Create multiple flows equal to the value of N, which is defined at run time based on the

data available and logic within the process.

* An index variable increments each time a new branch is created, until the index variable

reaches the value of N.

* Replaced by the forEach activity in BPEL 2.0 projects.

forEach Activity:

* Process multiple sets of activities sequentially or in parallel.

* forEach activity can only use a scope activity.

* Replaces FlowN activity in BPEL 2.

If Activity:

* Define conditional behavior for specific activities to decide between two or more branches.

* This activity replaces the switch activity in BPEL 2.0 projects.

IM Activity:

* Send an automatic, asynchronous instant message (IM) notification to a user, group, or

destination address.

Invoke Activity:

* Specify an operation you want to invoke for the service (identified by its partner link).

* Can be one-way or request-response on a port provided by the service.

* Can also automatically create variables in an invoke activity.

* Can invoke a synchronous web service or initiates an asynchronous web service.

Java Embedding Activity:

* Add custom Java code to a BPEL process using the Java BPEL exec extension bpelx:exec.

Partner Link Activity:

* Define the external services with which your process interacts.

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Phase Activity:

* Creates Oracle Mediator and business rules service components for integration with a

BPEL process.

* Creates message request input and message response output variables and design business

rules for evaluating variable content for the BPEL process.

* When you complete these tasks, the following activities and service components are

created:

- Assign activity.

- Invoke activity.

- Mediator partner link.

- Business rules service component.

Pick Activity:

* Waits for the occurrence of one event in a set of events and performs the activity associated

with that event.

* If multiple events occur, the selection of the activity to perform depends on which event

occurred first.

Receive Activity:

* Specifies the partner link from which to receive information and the port type and

operation for the partner link to invoke.

* This activity waits for an asynchronous callback response message from a service

* The receive activity supports the bpelx:property extensions that facilitate the passing of

properties through the SOAP header, and the obtaining of SOA runtime system properties for

useful information such as tracking.compositeInstanceId and tracking.conversationId.

Receive Signal Activity:

* Use this activity in detail processes to wait for the notification signal from the master

process to begin processing.

* Use this activity in a master process to wait for the notification signal from all detail

processes indicating that processing has completed.

Remove Entity Activity:

* Remove an entity variable.

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RepeatUntil Activity:

* Use this activity if the body of an activity must be performed at least once.

* The XPath expression condition in the repeatUntil activity is evaluated after the body of the

activity completes. The condition is evaluated repeatedly (and the body of the activity

processed) until the provided boolean condition is true.

* Supported in BPEL 2 projects only.

Replay Activity:

* This activity enables you to re-execute the activities inside a selected scope.

Reply Activity:

* This activity allows the process to send a message in reply to a message that was received

through a receive activity.

* The combination of a receive activity and a reply activity forms a request-response

operation on the WSDL port type for the process.

Rethrow Activity:

* This activity enables you to rethrow a fault originally captured by the immediately

enclosing fault handler.

* Supported in BPEL 2 projects only.

Scope Activity:

* This activity consists of a collection of nested activities that can have their own local

variables, fault handlers, compensation handlers, and so on.

* A scope activity is analogous to a { } block in a programming language.

* Each scope has a primary activity that defines its behavior. The primary activity can be a

complex structured activity, with many nested activities within it to arbitrary depth. The

scope is shared by all the nested activities.

Sequence Activity:

* Define a collection of activities (synchronous preferred) to be performed in sequential

order.

Signal Activity:

* Used in a master process to notify detail processes to perform processing at runtime and

used in detail processes to notify a master process that processing has completed.

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SMS Activity:

* This activity enables you to send a short message system (SMS) notification about an

event.

Switch Activity:

* This activity consists of an ordered list of one or more conditional branches defined in a

case branch, followed optionally by an otherwise branch.

* The branches are considered in the order in which they appear.

- The first branch whose condition is true is taken and provides the activity performed for the

switch.

- If no branch with a condition is taken, then the otherwise branch is taken.

- If the otherwise branch is not explicitly specified, then an otherwise branch with an empty

activity is assumed to be available.

* The switch activity is complete when the activity of the selected branch completes.

Terminate Activity:

* End the tasks of an activity

* This activity is replaced by the exit activity in BPEL 2.0 projects.

Throw Activity:

* Generates a fault from inside the business process.

Transform Activity:

* This activity enables you to create a transformation that maps source elements to target

elements.

User Notification Activity:

* Placeholder to send notification.

* Notification channel defined by the end user in the User Messaging Preferences user

interface of the Oracle User Messaging Service.

* Defaults to email.

Validate Activity:

* Validate variables in the list against their XML schema.

Voice Activity:

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* This activity enables you to send a telephone voice notification about an event.

Wait Activity:

* This activity allows a process to specify a delay for a certain period or until a certain

deadline is reached.

* A typical use of this activity is to invoke an operation at a certain time.

* This activity enables you to wait for a given time period or until a certain time has passed.

* Exactly one of the expiration criteria must be specified.

While Activity:

* This activity supports repeated performance of a specified iterative activity.

* The iterative activity is repeated until the given while condition is no longer true.