You can include an intermediate message event
in your business process definition (BPD) when you want to model a
message event that is sent during execution of a process, or a message
end event when you want to send a message at an end of a path.
For
example, you might want to call an external service or to send a message
to be received by the start event in another process or processes.
Message events can be included in the process flow, which is connected
with sequence lines. Intermediate message events have both incoming
and outgoing sequence flows, while message end events have only incoming
sequence flows.
Tip: When you add message events in a
BPD, you should be aware of the general information in
Modeling message events that applies to all types
of message events.
Before you begin
To perform this task, you must be in the IBM® Process
Designer desktop
editor.
Procedure
- Open the Process Designer desktop editor.
- Open a BPD and drag an intermediate or end event from the
palette onto the BPD diagram.
- In the text box that displays over the event, type a name
for the event.
- Use the Sequence Flow tool to connect the event as needed.
- In the diagram, select the new event.
- On the Properties tab, click Implementation.
The default implementation for intermediate events that are included
in the process flow is Message. If you are
creating a message end event, select Message end event as
the implementation type.
- If you are creating an intermediate message event, select Sending from
the available message types in the drop-down list. By default, all
message end events are sending message end events.
- In the Message Trigger section,
complete one of the following actions.
- To select an existing undercover agent, click Select next
to the Attached Message UCA field.
- To create an undercover agent, click New.
See Undercover agents.
Important: The sender and receiver of the message
must both use the same undercover agent. For example, if the sender
of the message is a message end event in another BPD, then select
the same undercover agent for both the receiving intermediate event
and the sending message end event in the other BPD.
Tip: Undercover agents must have a schedule type of On
Event to function as a message trigger. Plus, the service
that is attached to the selected undercover agent must have one or
more input variables so that it can pass and correlate information
from the event.
- If you created an end event, specify
the input mapping.
- On the Properties tab, click Data
Mapping.
- Open the Input section.
- Map each input variable to a local variable in the BPD. For each variable, select it then complete one of the following
actions.
- Click the variable selector icon to map each input variable to
a local variable in the BPD.
- Enter a literal value or the name of a local
variable.
- To use the default value from the variable, click Use
default. When you enable this check box, the variable
selector icon is disabled.