Recap of the first blog/ Introduction

The first part ("Making more out of your Business Blueprints – a corner stone within a systematical BPM approach") of this blog series described the concept of business blueprints and the different types of business processes. SAP’s new approach of visualizing business processes is done through the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Thereby the business blueprint can be used as corner piece of a systematic business process management (BPM) approach within your entire enterprise.

Learn now how the modeled business blueprints within the Business Process Blueprinting tool can be extended within SAP NetWeaver BPM.

Implement the business process extension with SAP NetWeaver BPM

Once business requirements or business processes have been transformed into a technical solution model, the exposed process logic is documented as a business blueprint(s). These business blueprints are quite often maintained in SAP Solution Manager. Because of the fact that SAP Solution Manager plays a crucial role within the entire life-cycle of handling business processes for most companies. Once a business blueprint has been stored in SAP Solution Manager, it can be used for various purposes:

• Documentation and testing as part of the SOAR transaction(s)
• Reality check whether a certain business process is executed according to its business blueprint as part of SAP Solution Documentation Assistant
• Define extensions to blueprint processes and link them to their implementation in SAP NetWeaver BPM

The latter case is exactly what this blog is about. A previously modeled business blueprint, e.g. with Business Process Blueprinting tool, can be extended with additional process steps using an easy-touse BPMN editor. Using SAP NetWeaver BPM, the process model can then be transformed into an executable process. It is crucial to understand that not an entire business blueprint will run within the SAP NetWeaver BPM process engine, but only the parts which are assigned to the logical component “SAP NetWeaver BPMS”. Those modeled extensions are also stored implicitly within the SAP Solution Manager. As all models are now stored within SAP Solution Manager, the SAP Solution Manager also becomes the “single source of truth”. Hence, SAP Solution Manager becomes very crucial from a governance point of view.

The following steps are illustrating the extension of a business blueprint with SAP NetWeaver BPM. Please note that this feature is enabled with EhP1 for SAP NetWeaver BPM 7.3 (currently in rampup).

Assumption: Having a business blueprint modeled and stored within SAP Solution Manager

The image below shows the process flow of a business process within a business blueprint project:

Extend the process flow by using the Business Process Blueprinting tool

As earlier mentioned only certain pieces of a business blueprint will be implemented in SAP NetWeaver BPM. To indicate which parts are running on SAP NetWeaver BPM, the logical component “SAP NetWeaver BPMS” is used. When you place process steps inside this logical component, these can be later refined within SAP NetWeaver BPM for making them executable.

Step 1: Configuration of the Solution Composer component

Once the process extension is defined in the Business Process Blueprinting tool, you can start implementing the process in SAP NetWeaver BPM. The SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS) provides easy access to the business blueprint projects using the Search Console View (search type: Solution Manager Projects). As a prerequisite, you first need to configure the Solution Composer system on which the blueprint project is stored.

By clicking on the Manage Destinations link of the Search Console view, you will see the following screen:

Enter the appropriate information. To identify the package ID the following URL of the target SAP Solution Manager System might be helpful:

http://<host>:<port>/sap/bc/bsp/soco/ebbrepos/setup.asp

where <host> is the URL of the SAP Solution Manager system and <port> is usually of type 500<instance_number>

This leads to a web page similar to the following one:

Choose the right workspace and click on the download link, which will open a configuration file that contains the package ID.

Step 2: Search & Load the business blueprint from SAP Solution Manager

Business blueprints are stored within the Solution Composer component of the SAP Solution Manager. Hence, you need first to select the target SAP Solution Manager System on which the business blueprint is stored. Once this is done, you can easily search for the target business blueprint by entering a search string or leaving it blank for getting a complete list. The result will be displayed on the right hand side.

A double click on the selected project will show exactly the same content as the Business Process Blueprinting tool previously.

Detailing out a business blueprint by additional BPMN aspects

By nature business blueprints do not contain all relevant information for having an executable model. Exception flows and other critical BPMN concepts are missing and can be modeled into the loaded business blueprint. Please note that only the process steps of the “SAP NetWeaver BPMS” pool can be enhanced by SAP NetWeaver BPM.

Step 3: Create a composite process with the process steps to be executed

Start by creating a new Composite Process directly from the process flow. Right-click on the pool to open the context menu, from which you can create a new composite process.

Choose a Development Component and a name for the new process. On the next screen, select the process steps that will be implemented by the composite process, as indicated by the following image.

After finishing the wizard, a blank process model is generated. Using the Process Composer tool, you can now create the process implementation which can be deployed and executed. In the background, a link is maintained between the process steps in the Business Process Blueprint and the composite process, so navigation between the two levels is possible. The following picture shows the final process model:

Step 4: “Generate and Publish Documentation”

Once the composite process has been implemented, it can be uploaded into the SAP Solution Manager by clicking on “Generate and Publish Documentation” from the context menu of the process in the Project Explorer. By doing so the entire business process is now available as documentation within SAP Solution Manager.

Step 5: Linkage of implemented processes

Business Blueprints and composite processes strive for different objectives. This means they are trying to provide answers for different questions from different personas. Whereas the business blueprint provides a higher level of abstraction overview of the process logic for having an aligned view from business and IT, a composite process is the exact representation of the process flow including technical aspects like data flow, exception handling and service endpoints. Even though they have different target groups, it is critical to have a linkage between them for a better understanding of the entire end-to-end business process. The process model in the business blueprint remains lightweight and readable for the business department, while the complete, executable process model is available in the Process Composer. The integration of the business blueprint into the NetWeaver Developer Studio allows for seamless navigation between the two levels: A right click on the pool of the business blueprint opens up a pop-up menu with an entry “View Related Composite Processes …”. This shows, in which composite process the modeled process steps are implemented and executed.

Step 6: Deploy

Once the modeling part is done, you can deploy the business process as any other SAP NetWeaver BPM process.

Conclusion

In this article, we have shown how you can easily extend the process flow in a business blueprint with additional process steps, and how these process steps can be implemented using SAP NetWeaver BPM.

By linking the various artifacts, one can easily navigate from the high-level business process to the implementation, which includes technical details like data mappings, service endpoints and UI components. Please stay tuned for the next article in this series.

Related Links:

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/26074 - “Quick and easy reverse business process documentation with SAP Solution Manager 7.1”

http://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/pub/wlg/27270 - „Making more out of your Business Blueprints – a corner stone within a systematical BPM approach “