Alternative administration modes for BPEL processes

The alternative administration modes can help you to reduce response times for queries on tasks and processes by reducing the number of objects that are created in the Business Process Choreographer database to administer processes and activities.

You can set the administration mode in the administrative console by assigning one of the following values to the Business Flow Manager ProcessAdministration custom property.

optimize: Optimize process administration. In this mode, no default administration tasks are created at run time if a process template does not have any administration tasks defined. This mode reduces only the number of objects that are created; the set of users that can administer or monitor process, activity, and scope instances is not changed.
useProcessAdminAuthorizationOnly: Restrict process administration to authorization. If a process template was modeled to include administration tasks, this administration mode deactivates them and all actions related to them, such as escalations associated with the administration task.
The set of users that can administer or monitor process, activity, and scope instances is not changed by this administration mode. However, if the process or any of its activities have replacement variables that reference the modeled administration task, the people query for the task cannot be resolved, and the default people assignments apply.
useSystemAdminAuthorizationOnly: Restrict process administration to system administrators. If your process template was modeled to include administration tasks, this administration mode deactivates them and all actions related to them, such as escalations and monitoring. In addition, instance-based authorization is disabled thus restricting process administration and monitoring to users who are system administrators and system monitors.

If you do not specify an administration mode, instance-based authorization applies to actions on processes, activities, and scopes. In addition, administration tasks are created as defined in the process template. If the process template does not have any administration tasks, a default administration task is created at run time when a process instance is started.

If you change the administration mode, the new mode applies to all new process instances. For existing instances, the administration mode that is used depends on the position of the process navigation when the administration mode was changed. Activities before the current position are subject to the administration mode that applied when the instances were created. For all other activities, the new administration mode applies. Take care to avoid any disruption to people or automated processes that perform administrative actions using user IDs that are not in the appropriate role.

Additional information on restricting process administration to system administrators

This process administration mode is the most restrictive. A different set of rules applies to what happens when a new process instance is started and which user IDs are allowed to view, monitor, or perform administrative actions on process instance, scope instances, and activity instances.

This administration mode might not be suitable for your needs if any of the following conditions apply to your system:

Your BPEL process relies on actions that are associated with modeled administration tasks, for example, escalations.
If adding the users that need to perform the modeled administration tasks to the BPESystemAdministrator role, grants these users more rights than they need.

When process administration is restricted to system administrators, the following rules apply to administering and monitoring process instances, scope instances, and activity instances.

Process instances

When a new process instance is started, whether by a user or another component, no administration task instance is created for the process instance. The only work item created for the process instance is the process starter work item.

Administration: Only users in the BPESystemAdministrator role can perform administration actions on the process instance. For example, terminating or restarting a failed process instance, or updating the contents of a global or local variable.
Viewing and monitoring: Only users in either the BPESystemAdministrator role or BPESystemMonitor role can view or monitor the process instance or parts of it. For example, viewing the progress of a process instance in the Business Process Choreographer Explorer, or using Business Flow Manager APIs to read the contents of variables that belong to a process instance.

Scope instances

When a scope that has an associated administration task is activated, no administration task instance is created and no work item is created.

Administration: Only users in the BPESystemAdministrator role can perform administration actions on the scope instance. For example, jumping from one activity in the scope to another activity, or performing a skip, force-retry, or force-complete on an activity inside the scope.
Viewing and monitoring: Only users in either the BPESystemAdministrator role or BPESystemMonitor role can view or monitor the scope instance or parts of it.

Activity instances

When an activity instance needs an administrative action performed on it, for example, because it stops due to a failure in its implementation, no administration task or work items are created.

Administration: Only users in the BPESystemAdministrator role can perform administration actions on the activity instance. For example, performing a force-complete, force-navigate, or force-retry on an activity instance that stopped.
Viewing and monitoring: Only users in either the BPESystemAdministrator role or BPESystemMonitor role can view or monitor the activity instance or parts of it. For example, reading the contents of variables that belong to an activity instance.