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Contributed on March 31, 2022

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Low-Code Business Automation Training

Blog: Method & Style (Bruce Silver)

Ten months in the making, I’m happy to announce that my Low-Code Business Automation training and certification is at last available.  While there are many Low-Code Business Automation products available, they all use proprietary modeling and expression languages.  Trisotech does not.  On the Trisotech platform, you can create complex event-driven workflow services and pageflow apps without programming, using just BPMN and DMN, which are industry standards.  The secret is replacing Java, the normal language used to make BPMN executable, with boxed expressions and FEEL borrowed from DMN.  The result is a fully model-driven platform, accessible to product owners, technically inclined business users, in addition to developers interested in faster, model-based methods.

DMN is the foundation, including BKMs, boxed expressions, and FEEL.  The Business Automation course assumes students are familiar with it already, and a bundle with the newly revised DMN training is available at a significant discount.  What’s new in the Business Automation course is how to create executable BPMN models with Low-Code.  As I’ve noted many times over the past year, it simply requires configuring BPMN tasks using boxed expressions and FEEL.

While conceptually simple, there are a great many details to cover, so many in fact that the course is divided into Basics and Advanced sections, with separate certifications for each.  The Basics section presents the fundamental design patterns and methodology, followed by detailed discussion of how to configure five key BPMN task types: Decision tasks, Service tasks, Script tasks, User tasks, and Call Activities.

• Decision tasks execute decision services created in DMN.  In Low-Code Business Automation, DMN is used for essentially all modeler-defined business logic.
• Service tasks invoke external services as REST APIs catalogued in the model’s Operation Library.  The training shows how to create Operation Library entries, how to map process variables to the API parameters, and how to invoke them from Service tasks.
• Script tasks execute FEEL expressions within BPMN.  They are handy, for example, for querying and updating Cloud Datastores, which are effectively user-defined database tables within the Trisotech platform.
• User tasks provide human interaction.  The training shows how to configure the task user interface with data mapping and CSS – no javascript required! – with Trisotech’s new System of Engagement.
• Call Activities invoke BPMN processes as executable subprocesses, simplifying testing and reuse of fragments of an end-to-end process.

In addition to detailed explanation of the configuration techniques, students perform hands-on exercises with the tools, as you cannot really learn to do Business Automation simply by watching videos.  Students model scenarios I describe, and then we discuss the solution.  This is how you learn to do it.  The Basics section concludes by creating an executable version of the Vacation Request process from the Trisotech EU-Rent repository.

The Advanced section revolves around construction of a Stock Trading pageflow app.  Each part of this section creates part of the app.  We also introduce two additional techniques related to Service tasks:  How to REST-enable databases using the OData standard, and how to create Operation Library entries manually from service provider documentation.

Students in this course have access to many more platform features than are available through my BPMN Method and Style and DMN courses, including:

• Workflow Modeler
• Decision Modeler
• Operation Library
• Digital Enterprise Graph
• Cloud Datastores
• User task System of Engagement
• Connectors Library
• Cloud Publish
• Service Library, with separate runtime environment for each student

In addition, each student is provided with his or her own MySQL database on my website and a Skyvia Connect OData endpoint linked to it.

Students have 60 days use of the platform to complete the training and all certification requirements.

The course outline is below.  The Basics section encompasses Parts 1-6, Advanced is Parts 7-12.

1. Introduction and Overview
2. DMN in Business Automation
3. BPMN in Business Automation
4. Task Configuration
5. Vacation Request Process
6. Basics Recap and Certification
7. Stock Trading App
8. Price and Validate Trade
9. Evaluate Portfolio
10. Execute Trade
11. The Pageflow
12. Advanced Certification and Beyond

To get a better feel for the training, check out this FREE video, which is Part 1 of the training.  Or just click here to register.