Introduction
I have explained in my first blog about the target migration path for SAP NetWeaver BPM/BRM customers to SAP Build Process Automation. This blog explains how common BPM usage patterns and the functional equivalent in SAP Business Technology Platform. NetWeaver BPM customers have consumed the rich set of capabilities in SAP Process Orchestration to model and execute human centric processes. Most of the use cases are orchestration of people centric activities and system centric activities together with mappings, notifications and message events.
SAP Business Technology platform offers pro-code and no-code development tools to model and execute business processes. SAP Workflow Management is the first solution introduced by SAP in 2017 with Workflow, Business Rules and Process Visibility capabilities. Workflows / Processes are modelled using a BPMN based pro-code tooling in SAP Business Application Studio. SAP has also introduced SAP Build Process Automation as the successor product with no-code experience in 2022 and reuse the power of SAP Workflow Management to provide a smooth transition and reuse of all Workflow Management investments in Business Technology Platform. The combined power of pro-code and no-code tooling enable customers to implement various process automation cases.
Process Automation - No-Code and Pro-Code development
SAP Build Process Automation has no-code and pro-code tooling to build and deploy a process application. The no-code based tooling enable consumption of pro-code artifacts helps customers to build complex process applications in a hybrid model. SAP Business Application Studio enable pro-code development of Workflows, SAP UI5 uis and Cloud Application Programming model to write business logic or persistence. The Workflows modeled in Business Application studio is deployed to the same Build Process Automation runtime and these workflows can be also consumed as a reference sub flow from the no-code Process Builder. Similarly SAP UI5 component modelled in SAP Business Application studio can be consumed as a Task Form in no-code Process Builder. The Workflows or Processes modelled using these tools can be accessed through the same runtime APIs exposed by SAP Build Process Automation.
Functional Mapping between On-Premise and Cloud Solutions
The below functional mapping help customers and partners to understand the equivalent capabilities in SAP Build Process Automation or the planned road map to achieve the required capabilities. The combination of pro-code and no-code tooling help customers to plan their migration from on-premise to SAP Business Technology Platform.
| SAP NetWeaver BPM Feature | Artifacts | SAP Build Process Automation - Pro Code Tools | SAP Build Process Automation - No Code Tools | Description |
| Start Event | Start Event | Supported | Supported | |
| Message Start Event using Web Service interface. | Supported. Not possible to associate a typed message interface as message trigger. | Message Start Event with Form, API or Event Trigger supported. API trigger requires JSON data using REST APIs. | Build Process Automation supports only REST/OData APIs and JSON Data | |
| Intermediate Events | Timer Event | Supported | Supported | |
Intermediate Message Event . |
Correlation condition limited to Business Key or Workflow Instance id. Correlation conditions with Expressions not supported, Message matching and delivery model not supported. Conditional start not supported. | Not Supported. Planned roadmap item. | NetWeaver BPM Message Event supports dynamic matching of correlation condition. Conditional start enable developers to assign same message trigger to start event and intermediate message event to start process and receive updates. | |
Boundary Event | Supports escalations based on due dates in Human activities / User tasks. Supports Intermediate Escalation event in Referenced Workflows. | Not supported. Planned roadmap item. | Using Intermediate Escalation Event, in Pro-Code tools it is possible to propagate error codes to parent flow. | |
| End Event | Supported | Supported | ||
| Error End Event | Not Supported | Not Supported | ||
| Message End Event | Possible to model Referenced subprocess with output mapping. | Possible to model Referenced subprocess with output mapping. | Message End event is supported in BPM for synchronous Processes. Reference Sub Processes are using Synchronous interfaces to complete the child process. | |
| Escalation End Event | Not Supported | Not Supported | ||
| Terminating End Event | Supported | Not Supported | Terminating end event is required only when a process execute activities in parallel and process instance need to complete the process without executing any other activities. | |
| Human Activity | User Interface - SAP UI5 , Webdynpro, Visual Composer. | SAP UI5 | SAP UI5 and No-Code Forms. Planned to support SAP Build Apps. | Possible to reuse SAP UI5 components in SAP Build Process Automation from SAP BPM. |
| Dead lines | Supported | Supported | ||
| Escalations | Supported | Supported | ||
| Potential Owners | Supported | Supported | User groups and dynamic assignment of users supported. | |
| Excluded Owners | Not Supported | Not Supported | ||
| Automated Activity | Webservice and RFC/BAPI interfaces using XML. PI Operation Mappings. | REST/OData interfaces using JSON. Possible to model Actions by consuming the meta data from SAP API Business Hub, SAP Graph, ABAP Restful services and CAP services. | REST/OData interfaces using JSON. Automation support BAPI connector. | Webservice and RFC/BAPI connectivity is possible by using SAP Integration Suite. |
| Exception as Boundary Events | Not Possible | Not Possible | Customers can use SAP Integration models or CAP Service | |
| Mapping Activity | Mapping Activities using functions. Custom EJB functions. | Script tasks using ECMAScript 5.1. Enable customers to perform complex transformation process context or add / remove context attributes. | Advanced Expressions - road map item. | Possible to use SAP Integration Suite for complex transformations and use the integration model from SAP Build Process Automation. |
| Reporting Activity | Reporting Data from Process Context. | Workflow Attributes and Process Visibility. | Process Attributes and Process Visibility. | Process Visibility provides real time visibility with configurable performance indicators. |
| Notification Activity | Sending EMail Notification to users. | Supported | Supported. | |
| Sub-Process | Embedded Sub Processes. | Not supported. | Not Supported. | |
| Referenced Sub-Process to modularise processes. | Supported | Supported | ||
| Referenced Sub - Process with Parallel-for-each | Supported | Not Supported | ||
| Gateways | Abstract Gateway | Not Supported | Not Supported | |
| Exclusive Choice | Supported | Supported - with two outgoing flows. | ||
| Inclusive Choice - Multiple outgoing flows with conditions hold true. | Not Supported. Possible to model using Exclusive Gateway and parallel splits. | Not Supported | ||
| Parallel Split & Join | Supported | Supported | ||
| Event Based Choice | Not Supported | Not Supported | Event based choice supports evaluation of outgoing flow based on a message event or a timer event. | |
| UnControlled Merge | Supported | Not Supported | ||
| Multi-Instance loop of activities. | Executing activities (Automated, Human, Embedded and Ref Sub Process) in parallel. | Supported in Referenced Sub-Process. | Not Supported. | |
| Pools and Lanes | Grouping of activities in swimlanes. | Not Supported | Not Supported | |
| APIs | OData APIs and Java APIs to manage Process and task instances. | REST APIs OData APIs to manage Tasks. | REST APIs OData APIs to manage Tasks. | |
| BPM Events | BPM Events to consume Process, Task creation and completion. | Not supported | Not supported. | |
| Business Rules Management | Decision Orchestration with Text rules and decision tables. | Supported. Decision management with hit policies as First Match and All Match. Decision orchestration using Text Rules and Decision Tables. | ||
| Rules Manager interface to modify decision in a runtime system. | Not Supported. | Not Supported. | ||
| Documents | Attaching documents to processes and tasks. | Supported | Supported. Further enhancements planned in roadmap item. | SAP Document Management service provides APIs to manage documents and consume it from different applications. SAP Build Process Automation provides out of the box integration using no-code Forms. SAP UI5 based applications can persists the documents in SAP Document Management service and keep the document reference in the process context. |
| BW Connectors. | Extract Process logs and data to SAP Business Warehouse. | Not Supported | Not Supported | SAP Process Visibility receive process events and data . Process Visibility exposes APIs to extract these data and integrate with other analytical applications. |
| Archiving | Archive Process and Task data | Not supported. | Possible to extract data using Public API and delete those instances. |
Summary
SAP Build Process Automation with no-code and pro-code tooling enable SAP NetWeaver BPM customers to plan their cloud transformation journey. As a cloud service SAP Build Process Automation delivers product increments on a bi-weekly basis and a strong product roadmap. There could be functional gaps in the current version of SAP Build Process Automation but these gaps will be removed over a period of time. Please go through the roadmap and what’s new section to get an overview of the upcoming releases.
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