Publishing is a process of committing an existing and modified business process model in order to make it available in Web Application. Web Application can simultaneously execute processes, which use process models published at different times. Different process versions are used to avoid mistakes and to ensure continuous execution of business processes.
The published version will be used in new process instances. If at the moment of publishing there are instances using the previous version, they will continue to use it until the process is completed. The version that is edited in ELMA Designer cannot be used in Web Application until it is published.
Attention!
Only published process versions are available in Web Application.
To save current changes in the process, click Save in the toolbar of the process page (Fig. 1). The process will be saved as a draft.
Fig. 1. Save button in the top toolbar.
There are two ways to publish a process draft:
click Publish in the toolbar of the process page. This button is hidden; to open it, click on the small arrow under the Save button (Fig. 2).
go to the Publishing tab, select the Processes section in the upper left corner and click Publish (Fig. 3).
Fig. 2. Publish button in the top toolbar.
Fig. 3. Publish button in the Publishing tab, Processes section.
The publishing window opens (Fig. 4):
Fig. 4. Process publishing window.
Version No. - serial number of the published version.
In the Process Start Variants section you can select the possible ways to start the process:
Start from Web Application - users can start process instances manually in Web Application;
Visible in the process list - show the process in the list of available processes in Web Application. if this checkbox is not selected, users will be able to start the process only from a page of a system object if the respective settings are configured.
Comment - a short description of the changes introduced. Comments are shown in Version History in the Comments column.
If you select the Generate documentation checkbox, you can publish the process and its documentation at the same time. In Web Application, process documentation is available in Processes – Documentation.
Process Start Variants
The Start from Web Application option allows users to start process instances manually in Web Application.
If the Start from Web Application option is not enabled, the process can be used as a sub-process. In this case, active process instances are shown in the My Processes and Process Monitor sections of Web Application.
The option Start from external system makes it possible to start a process instance through web services and HTTP requests. This allows integrating ELMA with the existing IT infrastructure and at the same time let users continue working in a familiar interface.
In the Token field you can generate the key that external systems must use when creating queries to the published process. To generate a new token, click the Generate button. If the field already shows a key and you click the Generate button, the existing token will be changed and become invalid.
Publishing a group of processes
In ELMA, you can publish a group of processes. To do that, go to the Publishing tab in the Processes section. Then, on the Drafts tab, select the desired processes. To select multiple processes, press and hold Ctrl on your keyboard and left-click on each desired process. The selected processes are highlighted yellow (Fig. 5). Once you have selected all the processes that you want to publish, click Publish in the toolbar.
Fig. 5. Selecting a group of processes for publication.
A window for group publishing will open (Fig. 6):
Fig. 6. Group publishing dialogue window.
In the upper part of the window, you can see a list of processes:
Process Name;
Version - serial number of the version being published;
Visibility - the selected processes become visible in the list of available processes in Web Application. Deselect processes, if you want to start them only form the object pages. In this case, you will need to configure respective settings.
Start Allowed - enables users to start process instances manually in Web Application.
Below, you can see the common parameters of the processes being published:
In the Comment field you can give a short description of the changes made in the new versions. The comments are shown on the Version History tab, in the "Comments" field;
With the Generate documentation option enabled you can publish the process and its documentation at the same time. In Web Application, process documentation is available in Processes – Documentation.
Publishing a process with sub-processes
If a process has internal sub-processes, they are always published together. The external sub-processes are published independently of the parent processes. When an internal sub-process is published:
its parent process is also published;
its internal sub-processes are published.
Fig. 7. Publishing window featuring a process with internal sub-processes.
