Why Use an iProcess Decision Service Step?

Using a iProcess Decisions Service step in your business process enables you to interact with a decision service in the iProcess Decisions Server (that is included as part of the iProcess Decisions Server Plug-in). A decision service is a compiled set of rules that have been defined in the iProcess Decisions Studio and then deployed.

This means that you can:

• send Staffware case data to the iProcess Decisions Server where it can process the case data against the decision service rules.
• capture the resulting data from the decision service back in Staffware.

The data that is passed between Staffware and the TIBCO iProcess Decisions™ Server is called an XML payload. The iProcess Decisions Server uses an XML schema to define the structure of the decision service inputs and outputs - this is known as a service contract. The XML payload sent from Staffware to the iProcess Decisions Server must conform to the service contract and similarly, data sent back to Staffware must also conform to the service contract.

Understanding the iProcess Decision Service Step Process

The following sequence of events occur each time a decision service is called using the iProcess Decision Service step:

• The iProcess Decision Service step creates an XML payload based upon the details you have specified in the iProcess Decision Service Step Definition dialogs.
• The XML payload contains a reference to the decision service name that will be called in the iProcess Decisions Server.
• The TIBCO iProcess™ Engine makes a call to the iProcess Java Plug-in, which then calls the iProcess Integration Framework Plug-in. This calls the iProcess Decisions Server Plug-in, which then calls the iProcess Decisions Server Java API.
• The rules set(s) and associated vocabulary files must be defined using the iProcess Decisions Studio and then copied to the iProcess Engine so that they can be used by the iProcess Decisions Server Plug-in.
• The iProcess Decisions Server deployment file .cdd MUST exist in the location specified in the SWDIR\eaijava\properties\eairulesmanager.properties file. The default location is on the iProcess Engine in the