A good practice while developing processes is to store business data in an external business database and retrieve them only when needed. A good question is: How do I retrieve this information from my forms?

Here’s a quick tutorial which explains how to retrieve the information from an external database, and display it as the initial value of a select box field in a form. You can find the process used as an example here.

Create a process with a human task and one form to interact with.



Add an entry pageflow form on the task Display data.

In this form, use a widget to add a select box field.

Click on the select box widget, then on the General tab and Data pane.  In the available value field, use this script:

This script will create a list to store the usernames that are returned. Then, it opens the SQL connection to query the table and add each name to the list. Finally, it returns the result.

At the execution, you’ll get this:

A very useful engine capability in Bonita Open Solution, is a recorder. This feature is in fact installed by default, but is may not be widely known.

A recorder listens to the different events taking place in the Bonita Execution Engine and records them all to a log.

The online BonitaSoft Documentation system now documents recorders. So, there are basically two steps to follow to configure and create a recorder. Click here to go straight to the tutorial which provides the code you will need to create a recorder and set it up.

Thanks to Philippe Ozil from the Services team for this tip, which was recently used extensively for a BOS installation.

Have fun with Bonita!

Working as a team requires information to be shared around safely and in real time.

The Documentation team has just finished updating tutorials and videos explaining the collaboration features in the Bonita Open Solution Subscription Pack.

The includes a repository management feature which allows processes and artifacts to be made accessible, to be synchronized and edited in real time on a shared SVN server.

Special features such as automatic synchronizing, locking processes in use or reverting to previous versions, are quick and easy to use.

All you need is a SVN repository to be set up and configured beforehand, and an internet connection.  All features are accessible from the Repository menu in Bonita Studio.

Design collaboration features

A series of videos briefly and concisely explains the different functions which are very useful in teamwork.

Check them out in the BonitaSoft documentation video library.

One of the added-values included in the Bonita Open Solution Subscription Pack is the contexts feature. Contexts are useful to handle different “environments/status/contexts” of a process.

For example, by defining a “test context” and a “production context” and associating different variables to each context, there is no need to change variable values in connectors, forms, or other places where variables necessarily differ in different environments.

A context is a set of key-value pairings. Context keys (which will be replaced by a predefined value) can be used as input in most text variables.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we apply continous improvement to Bonita documentation online, you’ll see new things appearing now and then.

For example, we’ve just added a sitemap to make the full contents of the documentation more visible, and (we hope) easier to navigate.

You’ll find the sitemap link at the bottom of the navigation menu on the left.

The sitemap tree, or table of contents, may be fully collapsed on arrival. Click on the + icon to unroll it, or click on Expand All.

The top level of this sitemap / Table of Contents matches the navigation on the left.

But now, if you click to Expand All, you’ll be able to see the contents titles at all levels in the Table of Contents hierarchy.

You can also Collapse All and expand just a single chapter.

This is especially useful to see the contents of a chapter containing many levels that are otherwise not so easy to find quickly…for example, in Process Design, which contains a lot of information about using Bonita Studio.

There should be some useful stuff down there in the sub-sub-sub chapters…

Click on any title to jump directly to its page in the documentation.

(If you have trouble collapsing and expanding, refresh the sitemap page.)

Have fun with Bonita open source documentation!  (And as always, your feedback is welcome.)

We’ve just finished migrating the Bonita Open Solution Simulation Guide from its ancient PDF format into the new online documentation system.

This should make it a bit easier to find the bit of information you need as you configure simulation.

You can use simulation in Bonita Open Solution to evaluate the way a process runs in multiple iterations, under different resource availabilities and different load profiles.

A simulation runs a specified number of iterations over a specified period of time, using either simulated data or assigned probabilities, and the cumulated result of all iterations is shown in a report.

At the process level, you’ll need to define resources needed needed at various steps in the process.

You can choose to define simulation parameters on individual tasks (e.g., data to fill variables, resources needed to complete a task, and more) and transitions (e.g., conditions using simulation variables, or probabilities that the process will take one path or another.)

And again at the process level, define a load profile which will be used to characterize the iterations of the process to be run in the simulation.

Running a simulation produces and exports a report which details what happened at the process and task level in the simulation.

Inside the documentation, there is a how-to tutorial for each of the simulation parameters that you might want to define (see below). There is also a new video available, Overview of Simulation Feature (thanks to Frederic Bouquet), that shows where to find the various places to configure simulation parameters and characteristics.

Overview of Simulation Feature is also available from the video library:

BOS 5.6 includes an example process called Delivery-Simulation, which illustrates how to configure a very simple simulation, using two processes with the same steps but slightly different flows. Try running both to see and compare the simulation reports.  You can find this example from the Welcome page of Bonita Studio:

More improvements are on the way.  Stay tuned!