16.3    Recommendations

Based on our own experience in several ccBPM to SAP BPM migration projects, we would like to share the following useful tips and tricks with you:

• Modeling and redesigning business processes
  • The direct involvement of the business and process stakeholders is very important when modeling or improving business processes. You should actively involve both parties from an early stage of the migration, especially if you’re planning to redesign the existing ccBPM integration processes. As we know, SAP BPM isn’t just an IT tool but rather an enabler to achieve the short- and long-term goals set by the business.
  • Always design and model your business processes following the correct design patterns, standards, and naming conventions applicable for BPMN 2.0.
  • Introduce naming conventions to be applied in SAP BPM, including SAP BPM and SAP BRM objects.
  • Start modeling your processes from a happy flow perspective, that is, the default path your business process is expected to follow under normal circumstances. Then, start adding more details and process logic to it, such as exception handling, reporting steps, and so on.
  • When modeling a business process that collects multiple intermediate messages (with the same or different message types), use an event-based gateway in combination with a timer or any other logical condition to avoid endless loops in your process.
  • Remember that to support exception handling in SAP BPM using boundary events linked to automated activities, your service interfaces must contain a fault message type associated with its service definition.
• Skill set and way of working
  • Consider the fact that the skill set required in an SAP BPM project is different from that for ccBPM projects. Developers will need to have a basic understanding of Java-based toolsets and Java programming.
  • The implementation team will need to be familiar with BPMN modeling and principles.
  • Given that BPMN is a more business-friendly modeling annotation (as opposed to the BPEL used in ccBPM), involve the business in your SAP BPM implementation.
  • Because SAP BPM has a better user-centric capability than ccBPM, consider improving the existing process during your migration by providing better functionalities for human-based tasks.
  • Consider extending your current ccBPM error handling. Because SAP BPM offers more features to handle errors, you don’t necessarily need to translate one on one, but you can improve it.
  • Consider setting up a transport strategy to include Java-based development. As an example, you can consider setting up CTS+ as a common transport platform.
  • Extend or develop a naming convention to include SAP BPM-related objects.
• Infrastructure
  • You’ll need a Java-based development infrastructure, including SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio. You’ll need to keep up the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio version with your current SAP NetWeaver server version. As the server is upgraded with new versions, you’ll need a good rollout strategy for SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio to ensure a consistent developer setup.
  • We strongly recommend installing SAP NetWeaver development infrastructure to facilitate source controls and concurrent development by multiple team members.
  • Given that your Java-based development artifacts might depend on SAP PI objects (ES Repository or Integration Directory), consider developing an approach that ensures SAP BPM objects aren’t transported without the service interfaces that they depend on.
  • Set up an authorization matrix to ensure that the different developers or the administrator will have all required SAP BPM roles to perform their activities.
  • If you’re using SAP NetWeaver development infrastructure, consider setting up the required SAP BPM dependencies for your SCs in the SLD.
  • Don’t underestimate the preparation of the complete infrastructure required for SAP BPM—for instance, SAP NetWeaver development infrastructure, SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, and so on.
  • Consider tuning SAP BPM performance-related parameters, as described in Chapter 11.
  • Proper preparation is also needed for user management, especially if you’re planning to use SAP BPM for human-centric processes. This includes users, groups, roles, and authorizations in the user management engine (UME).
  • Even with this great book about SAP PO, sometimes you just won’t find all the answers you need. In that case, you can also try to find answers at SAP’s community for SAP BPM at www.sap.com/community/topic/process-orchestration.html, where you’ll find interesting forums, helpful blogs, and useful resources related to SAP BPM.