User Reports Sample

This sample provides reporting samples and information which will help you design and deploy your own reports. In order to begin creating your own reports it is important for you to know where to begin. First the reporting module in ActiveVOS is built on the robust BIRT reporting engine. That engine has eclipse plug-in support, which ActiveVOS Designer includes for you. These plug-ins contain a rich editing environment for the construction of new reports. Once you have created a report you can then use a Business Process Archive (BPR file) to deploy it to the server as a resource. After deployment it will be available on the Report page of the console. This sample’s documentation supplies information about using reports with ActiveVOS, but only helps supplement the reporting module’s (BIRT) documentation. Please refer to the BIRT documentation for more details on advanced reporting features.

Getting Started

You can add a new report to any project. It is good practice to separate the reporting files from other files in your project. In this example the reports that have been supplied are stored in the folder called “report”. When you use File>New and choose to create a new report always use the ActiveVOS Template. The template has a script, which when the report is deployed automatically detects the Data Source connection information by using the supplied AeBirtContext class. If you are interested in what this script open a report which uses the template and select the ActiveVOS Data Source and then click on the “Script” tab in the report editor. The Data Source while in ActiveVOS Designer does not use the server settings, but instead is predefined to point to your embedded ActiveVOS’ server derby database. The embedded Derby database has a limitation that only one application can connect to it at a time, so if you are creating reports using derby make sure you stop the embedded ActiveVOS Server first. If you need to change that default simply edit the data source properties to point to the database you have stored your ActiveVOS data. Once you have created a new report the next step is to define a Data Set. A Data Set is the SQL and parameters needed to return the results from the database. Appendices I and II have information about the ActiveVOS data model, which will help you understand where the data is stored in the database. Once you have created your select statement you can simply drag the Data Set onto the canvas and a simple table will be created for you. After the table has been created go ahead and make any of the formatting changes for your report that you need. Charts and other reporting types are also available please consult the BIRT documentation. A chart sample has been included to give you a sense of the capabilities.

Sample Reports

Report	Description
IndexedPropertyValues	Displays all the indexed values in the system grouped by property name. Additionally it can show an individual property’s values via the filter.
ProcessDistribution	Displays a pie chart of the distribution of process executions by process deployment (plan id, process name). Additionally it has a listing of the counts.
OpenTaskRoles	Displays the users and groups and their roles for open tasks.

Deploying Reports

Reports are easily deployed simply by selecting them or the folder where they reside using the context menu (RMB - right mouse button) to select Export. Export will display a dialog from which you select Orchestration->Business Process Archive export option. Select a location for your BPR file and typically choose Web service deployment with the location of your server (the default is localhost on port 8080). Also make sure to check the “Replace existing resources” checkbox or the system may not overwrite the previous report deployments, unless you have set that as the default on the server properties. You can also choose to save the deployment script, which is an ant script which can be used to deploy your reports again simply by using the RMB execute option. Note the sample project has a saved deployment script in the deploy folder, which can be used to automatically deploy the sample reports. Selecting the next button brings you to a page where you will see your reports in the additional resources list. Choose a “Process Group” name for both your entries, for example Sample Reports.

Appendix I - ActiveVOS Process Data Model

Table 1 - ActiveVOS Process Tables
Table	Description	Notes
AeUserProcessView (AeProcess)	Holds the main state of a process instance. The primary state of the process (ex. running, started, completed, etc.) is stored in the ProcessState column.	Actual BPEL language information and related services are stored in a related table, called AePlan.
AeVariable	This is the set of variable data associated with the process.
AeIndexedPropertyValue	During deployment you can choose to index fields from variables in your process. This table stores those values, which are typically your key performance indicators (KPI).	In order to find the property name associated with the value data you need to link to the AeIndexedPropertyForPlan (plan is the deployment information/table for a process definition) and the AeIndexedProperty tables.
AeProcessLogData	Contains the logging information associated with a process instance.	This is used to do root cause analysis (show process state at a point in time) of issues. But it also contains very useful reporting information.
AeProcessAttachment	Contains any attachments to variables in the process.	The actual attachment data is stored in the AeAttachment table as a BLOB.
AeAttachment	Stores the BLOB of an attachment.
Others ...

ActiveVOS Process Data Model Entity Relation Diagram Subset

Figure 1 – ER Diagram for some of the process centric tables.

Appendix II - ActiveVOS Human Task Data Model

In order to create new human task centric reports you will need a basic understanding of the ActiveVOS human task data model. The data model is of course centered on the task, which in the database is the AeB4PTask table. The primary key of the AeB4PTask table is the ProcessId and other tables have keys which relate back to the ProcessId in this table. As mentioned in the process section of the data model a system process actually handles the task state management so it is no surprise to see this relation between the AeB4PTask table and the AeProcess table. Table 2 contains a short list and descriptions of task tables for which you may have monitoring or other interests. Figure 2 contains a portion of the full ActiveVOS data model that is centered on the AeB4PTask table.

Table 2 - ActiveVOS Human Task Tables
Table	Description	Notes
AeB4PTask	Holds the main state of a task instance. The primary state of the task (ex. unclaimed, claimed, started, completed, etc.) is stored in the State column see table 4 below The TaskType column indicates whether the row contains a task or notification, (0=task, 1=notification).	Much of the task state interaction is accomplished through processes so in order to actually change anything in a task one must use the WS-HT Service API. Not also that the task access information is also stored in CLOB columns in this table as organization entities, but for quicker access for login to inbox it is also separated into its own table (AeB4pTaskACL).
AeB4pTaskACL	This table contains the access control list for the task. Type is zero for user and 1 for group. See Table 3 below for generic human role column values.	This table controls access to task information when using the WS-HT API. Thus it controls what is visible to a user who is logged into the ActiveVOS inbox, or another client application.
AeB4PTaskPa AeB4PTaskEventDetail	Contains all events which change the state of the task.	This is used to produce the history of a task.
AeB4PTaskAttachments	Contains the attachments associated with a task.	This is used to store attachments which are associated with a task and typically available in the task detail display.
Others ...

Table 3 - AeB4PTaskACL – GenericHumanRole Column
Role	Value	Description
Initiator	0	Task Initiator
Stakeholder	1	Task Stakeholder
Potential Owner	2	Potential Owner
Actual Owner	3	Actual Owner
Excluded Owner	4	An excluded owner
Business Administrator	5	Business Administrator
Notification recipient	6	Recipient of a notification task type

Table 4 – AeB4PTask – State Column
State	Value
Deferred	0
Unclaimed	1
Claimed	2
Started	3
Completed	4
Skipped	5
System Error	6
Faulted	7
Exited	8
Suspended	9

Figure 2 – ActiveVOS Human Task ER Diagram Subset