Configuring the Process Portal index

You can change where the index is stored by modifying an environment variable. To change the index behavior, such as the length of the update interval or including completed tasks in the index, you must edit the 100Custom.xml configuration file.

The index allows process participants in IBM® Process Portal to search for tasks or process instances that contain particular metadata or instance data. The index is also used for historic data in the Process Performance and Task Performance dashboards.

Because indexing is enabled by default, the following configuration actions are optional.

Setting the location of the task index
Changing the index behavior

Setting the location of the index

The location of the index is determined by the value of the BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX environment variable. This variable has cell scope on a stand-alone server and cluster scope on a cluster.

On a cluster

The default location is $<BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX_ROOT>/cluster_name. Using this default location results in one index per cluster on each node so that all cluster members on the same node share the index.

So that an index does not have to be maintained for each cluster member, one index can be shared across nodes. The index can be maintained in only one cluster member at a time, which is enforced by a locking strategy on the index. To set up the index, use a shared network storage solution for your index and change the value of the cell scoped BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX_ROOT variable to point to the common location.

If you want a cluster member to have a separate index, you can change the value of the cell scoped BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX_ROOT variable to point to a different location.

To locate the environments variables, in the administrative console click Environment > WebSphere Variables.

On a stand-alone server: The default location of the task index is $<BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX_ROOT>/$<WAS_SERVER_NAME>. If the BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX variable is not set, the location defaults to $<USER_INSTALL_ROOT>/searchIndex/task/$<WAS_SERVER_NAME>, which results in one index per server.
To change the index location, in the administrative console click Environment > WebSphere Variables. If the BPM_SEARCH_TASK_INDEX variable does not exist, define it with cell scope then set the value to the new location.

Changing the index behavior

The index configuration includes the following default settings:

Indexing is enabled.
The index is updated every 5 seconds.
Upon task completion, the index is updated for the task that was just completed and open tasks. It is not updated for previously completed tasks associated with the process.

To change the index behavior, perform the following actions:

Edit the 100Custom.xml file for the appropriate server:
- <process_center_profile>\config\cells\<Cell>\nodes\<node>\servers\<server>\process-server\config\system\100Custom.xml
- <process_center_profile>/config/cells/<Cell>/nodes/<node>/servers/<server>/process-server/config/system/100Custom.xml

Add or edit the following code snippet as required:

<search-index>            
    <task-index-enabled>true</task-index-enabled>            
    <task-index-update-interval>5</task-index-update-interval>
    <task-index-update-completed-tasks>false</task-index-update-completed-tasks>
    <task-index-store-fields>false</task-index-store-fields>
    <task-index-work-manager>wm/default</task-index-work-manager>
    <task-index-include-system-tasks>falsetrue</task-index-include-system-tasks>
    <process-index-instance-completion-best-effort>false</process-index-instance-completion-best-effort>
</search-index>

In the <search-index> section, modify the appropriate task index tags for the configuration settings that you want to change.

Table 1. XML tags that can be used to change the index configuration settings
XML tag	Configuration setting description
`<task-index-enabled>`	This Boolean value determines whether indexing is enabled. The default value is `true`; if the index does not exist, it is created. To turn off indexing, change the value to `false`; if the index does not exist, it is not created. Restriction: If indexing is turned off, the search field in the Process Portal user interface is hidden. In addition, the Process list, the Process Performance dashboard, and the Team Performance dashboard do not work correctly.
`<task-index-update-interval>`	This integer value specifies the time between index updates in seconds. The specified interval determines when the state of the instance variables is captured for tasks that completed since the last index update. Only those tasks that are completed during the current interval are searchable with the latest instance data. The default value for the update interval is 5 seconds. The minimum value is one second.
`<task-index-update-completed-tasks>`	This Boolean value controls whether the index is updated for previously completed tasks. The default value is `false`, which means that only the task that was just completed and open tasks are updated in the index. If you change the value to `true`, instance-level updates, such as business data that is updated later in the process, is propagated to completed tasks.
`<task-index-store-fields>`	This Boolean value controls whether the actual field values are stored as separate fields. The default value is `false`, which means that the actual field values are not stored as separate fields. You might want to change the value to `true` for debugging purposes because it improves the readability for people and it allows queries by other search tools.
`<task-index-work-manager>`	This string contains the JNDI name of the work manager that is used by the indexing process to manage the search index. The default value is wm/default, which is the default work manager for WebSphere® Application Server. To improve the performance of the index creation, in the administrative console you can create a dedicated work manager with a greater number of available threads. You can then use this tag to switch to the new work manager.
`<task-index-include-system-tasks>`	This Boolean value controls whether system tasks are indexed. To enable system tasks to be displayed in Gantt charts in Process Portal, ensure that the value of this tag is set to `true`. If the value of this tag is to `false`, system tasks are not displayed in Gantt charts.
`<process-index-instance-completion-best-effort>`	This Boolean value controls whether completion dates are created when instances that are migrated from previous versions of IBM BPM are indexed. The default setting is `false`. If you change the value to `true`, the last completion date of the associated tasks is used for the instance completion date. If no associated tasks exist, the last modified time stamp of the instance is used as the completion date.

Save your changes.
Restart the server to activate the changes.