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Status Delivered
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 17, 2018

Enhance Bulk API for BPM REST To Include Failure Responses

We are using BPM Advanced 8.5.7 currently using a 3-step process to use REST query/claim/finish call to update a task in received status for a given process instance. I would like IBM to reconsider it's approach to how the bulk API support is handled with the BPM REST interface. My expectation is that it should work in such a way that all success and failure results are echoed back in a bulk response in the same order that they were submitted in the request. Ultimately, there should be a response summary that includes how many requests were processed and how many were successful or failed. If there were 10 requests and all were successful then it should be echoed with a success return code. If it were 10 failures, then a failure return code. If it were a mix of both, then it would be a partial response code. What I get now on a failure is a 404 HTTP status code, which is not very intuitive. This is related to PMR 16563 122 000.

Idea priority High
RFE ID 119006
RFE URL
RFE Product IBM Business Process Manager
  • Admin
    Owen Cline
    Reply
    |
    May 1, 2023

    Referring to the Task Bulk REST APIs for get data, claim, cancel, see here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/baw/22.x?topic=task-put-bulk-claim

    We only return the failed task commands in the response as stated here:

    Response content

    Empty if all claims succeed. For failed individual claims, a report is returned (TaskBulkOperationResponse complexType).

    The default content type is application/json.

    The caller can lop through the reponse to determine which tasks were successful and which ones were not.


  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    May 2, 2018

    Another use case that I want to share with IBM is one that I believe is applicable to both headless BPM applications and traditional coach BPM applications. There is the case where a user is performing a team distribution role (typically a manager) where a group of process instances would be assigned to a BPM user. This assignment process could be accomplished on an individual basis, however, from a UI it would make sense for the manager user is selecting multiple process instances to distribute across a team. The bulk API would allow for a single REST request per assignee that would be generated. Again, this should be a very common use case that bulk could support if it returned failures.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Apr 26, 2018

    Attachment (Use case): This attachment provides the set of available actions to state matrix and corresponding state diagram to help explain the interactions we have built within BPM.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Apr 25, 2018

    The use case is we are trying to follow a 3 step process that uses a ‘Query – Claim – Finish' sequence to lookup the task ID to perform the claim and finish to complete a task and update data values stored in the business object defined to BPM.
    If since the task ID is not something we currently track at time of instance creation, we have to perform the query but this step potentially could be taken out of the sequence if start instance returned the task ID of the first human activity.
    I am attaching a diagram from IIB that I believe is attached to the RFE as a better visual of what we are doing today exercising the same thing but implemented in a process loop handling bulk requests one at a time.

    We are using the headless implementation of BPM so we have written our own UI with microservices that call out to IIB exposed user operations (assign, cancel, complete, unassign) via REST-enabled services. Through the UI, a user takes action on one or more process instance. The “or more” part is what would trigger the bulk scenario. So if a user assigns 10 instances from the UI, that would equate to a process loop of 10 assign requests that ultimately follow the sequence described below. If we had the bulk REST functionality implemented we could make a single call at each step in the sequence so it's still a 3 step process however, it would be only a single iteration regardless whether the user asked for 1 or 100 assign requests. The query, claim, and finish are all done via the REST API to communicate with BPM. Hopefully, this explains things to a level that makes sense.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Apr 17, 2018

    Attachment (Use case)

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Apr 17, 2018

    Attachment (Use case)