This topic applies only to the IBM Business Process Manager Advanced configuration.

Limitations when working with process applications and toolkits

Differences between the modules and libraries created in your workspace and the process applications and toolkits that originated in the Process Center repository mean that there are some limitations when you develop business processes in this collaborative environment.

The following sections group the limitations as follows:

Limitations for the definition of an Advanced Integration Service in IBM Process Designer and its implementation in IBM Integration Designer

  • An Advanced Integration Service and its interface (WSDL) must reside together in the same process application or toolkit.
  • It is recommended that only one request-response operation be defined in the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file associated with an Advanced Integration Service. Using one request-response operation per interface reduces the risk of generating multiple WSDL files in Process Designer when changes occur.
  • A binding style specifies how a service is bound to a messaging protocol. Binding style is sometimes called the WSDL style or encoding style. An interface for an Advanced Integration Service must be of the document literal wrapped binding style.
  • An SCA export should have only one interface. As discussed in other limitations, using one interface and one operation reduces the risk of generating multiple WSDL files in Process Designer when changes occur.
  • An operation parameter must be a valid Java name.
  • The following types are not supported: anySimpleType, QName.
  • The runtime validation is not enforced for XSD enumeration, duration, hexBinary, base64binary types, or ID or IDREF references in any part of the system.
  • A list of XSD / WSDL restrictions as defined in XML constructs not supported.
  • If you import a process application and later refresh it with updates from the Process Center, you may see attributes marked deleted and added instead of an expected delta change such as a renamed attribute. These changes are from the Process Center and are caused by the differences between the Process Designer and Integration Designer programming models.
  • You cannot use full-length Latin and half-width Katakana characters in SCA component names (eg BPEL or mediation flow component) in Integration Designer even though these characters are permitted in IBM® Process Designer and the Process Center. This restriction is an XML standard restriction on XML names.
  • If you want to use a WebSphere adapter in a stand-alone resource adapter configuration, you will need to restart the Process Center or Process Server after installation of the adapter before you can deploy an application from the Process Center that uses the adapter.
  • You can make a service in Integration Designer available to Process Designer. This approach of starting an Advanced Integration Service in Integration Designer is known as a bottom-up approach. Should you create an interface with multiple operations and a business programmer makes changes to any of them in Process Designer then multiple files will be generated.

    To prevent this error, place the interfaces and data types in a toolkit with read-only access for the business programmer. This recommendation is discussed in Best practices when using IBM Integration Designer and IBM Process Designer together. Alternately, use only one operation for each interface.

  • In a bottom-up approach as described previously, an Advanced Integration Service parameter that is typed to a wrapped array created in Integration Designer will be represented in Process Designer as a list type if the following conditions are true: the wrapped array has only one child element; the maxOccurs indicator element has a value of unbounded; there are no attributes; and the element has an ArrayOf type name.
  • If a Process Designer user modifies a business object (or XSD) the business object inProcess Designer will get regenerated based on the business object model definition. The result is that the business object you published may not be the business object you receive.
  • If you use an element reference, be aware that once the Process Designer user modifies the element reference, the global element will become a global type and the references will be broken since the global element is no longer present.

Limitations on the configuration of process applications and toolkits

  • Modules and library names must be unique in a process application.
  • When you disassociate a default project (for example, the default module: PA_Implementation or the default library: PA_Library), you cannot then reassociate the same default project that you have disassociated. To associate the disassociated default project back to the Process Center, you must rename the project before you can associate it to the same process application or toolkit in the Process Center. If a process application does not have a default project associated to it (for example, the default module: PA_Implementation or the default library: PA_Library), when you open that process application in your workspace, a default project is automatically created.
  • When a toolkit is shared with another Process Center, you can open the tip of the toolkit and the tip of the process application in the same workspace. Before using the refresh and publish action, however, you must right-click the toolkit and change the snapshot version to the snapshot version that the process application depends upon.
  • Testing process applications on the Process Center server using the integration test client requires that an HTTP connection be available. When only an HTTPS connection is available, the deployment manager connection information cannot be obtained and testing a process application will fail.

Limitations when creating a Business Process Definition or an Advanced Integration Service

  • When you create a Business Process Definition (BPD) or an Advanced Integration Service (AIS) for the same process application or toolkit, you need to make sure that the BPD and the AIS both have a unique name so that the WSDL they each generate will also have a unique name. This makes sure that both WSDL's are integrated to your project. This applies to the Advanced edition only.

Limitations for SCA service interfaces that are based on the receiving message events of a BPD

  • You cannot refactor the interface name because it is generated by Process Designer based on the BPD name and the service identifier specified for the receiving message event.
  • You cannot refactor the binding style or operation name for any service interface because they are generated by Process Designer.
Parent topic: Process Center repository
Related tasks:
Creating an import to start a business process definition