You can configure IBM® Business
Automation Workflow to work
with an existing external Content Platform Engine, also called
an external Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system.
Before you begin
You can configure your IBM Business
Automation Workflow deployment
environment to use object stores in an external FileNet Content Platform Engine installation. This configuration is useful if
you set up a new IBM Business
Automation Workflow deployment
environment with IBM Case
Manager. To configure
your IBM Business
Automation Workflow deployment environment to use
object stores in an external installation, follow the instructions in this set of steps.
These prerequisites are necessary to configure IBM Business
Automation Workflow with an existing external Content Platform Engine.
- The existing external Content Platform Engine must be
configured on a profile that is enabled for Java 8. Otherwise, the Case configuration tool will
fail.
- On Content Platform Engine, you must have a domain already
set up. There might be multiple object stores already set up. When you configure the Content Platform Engine, there is a three-to-three correlation between
the IBM Business
Automation Workflow server and the FileNet® Content
Manager object store. The three object stores
are IBM Business
Automation Workflow document store (which must be a
new, empty object store), design object store, and target object store.
- As an application server, only WebSphere® Application
Server is
supported. In addition, if you are using a version earlier than V18.0.0.2, the WebSphere Application
Server used by IBM Business
Automation Workflow and the WebSphere Application
Server used by the FileNet Content
Manager must have the same version.
- The same Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) user repository must be used by both
IBM Business
Automation Workflow and FileNet Content
Manager.
- IBM Business
Automation Workflow can work with FileNet Content
Manager by using Federated Repositories (also
referred to as Virtual Member Manager (VMM)) or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). The
LDAP must be connected directly; or by using Federated Repositories (VMM) on the FileNet Content
Platform Engine on WebSphere Application
Server and its domain.
- When you create the WebSphere Application
Server profile for the
external Content Platform Engine, you must use a host name with
a domain name suffix, for example
MyDmgrHost.my_domain.com.
About this task
Note: You cannot reverse this configuration and return to using the IBM Business
Automation Workflow embedded Content Platform Engine. After you configure, you must always use the
external Content Platform Engine.
Back up your system configuration and databases before you begin this configuration. This backup
means you can roll back your configuration if needed. See Backing up and restoring administrative configuration files.
Procedure
-
Begin your configuration by checking there is no content such as folders and documents in the
IBM Business
Automation Workflow object store. Use the IBM Administration Console for
Content Platform Engine to check there is no content.
-
In the domain navigation tree, open .
-
In the object store navigation tree, open Search.
-
Click New Object Store Search.
-
For each of the following classes, run a search:
Document
.
-
If the result set is empty, there is no existing content.
-
Check the version level of the FileNet Content
Manager. It must be a supported version to work
with IBM Business
Automation Workflow. See Planning for an external Content Platform Engine.
-
Configure single sign-on (SSO) security for the external FileNet Content
Manager, including the configuration of the
user registry and trusted realm. Follow the instructions in Configuring single sign-on for an external Content Platform Engine.
-
Stop the IBM Business Automation
Workflow deployment
environment.
-
Start the IBM Business Automation
Workflow deployment manager to
have the changes take effect.
-
Designate a user from the shared repository to be the administrator for the object store.
Business Automation Workflow uses this user to do administrative
operations like the creation of document class definitions. Then, map this user to the IBM Business
Automation Workflow EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser role.
-
Check that the user defined in the Authentication Alias assigned to the
EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser role is a user from the shared repository.
- Select . Note the alias name that is used for the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser role.
- Select . Expand the Java Authentication and Authorization Service
section and select J2C authentication data. Verify that the user assigned to
the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser alias is a user from the shared user repository.
-
If the user assigned to the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser does not qualify, that is, the user is not
from the shared repository, do the following steps.
- Create an authentication alias with credentials from the shared user repository for the Content
Platform Engine administrator.
- In the WebSphere administrative console for the IBM Business
Automation Workflow server, select . The Global Security page opens.
- Expand the Java Authentication and Authorization Service section and
select J2C authentication data. The JAAS - J2C Authentication
Data page opens.
- Click New and add an authentication alias with LDAP credentials for the
object store administrator.
- Change the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser role to use the new authentication alias that you created.
This authentication alias is for FileNet Content
Manager. To change the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser role to use the new authentication alias, in the
WebSphere administrative console, select . Select your deployment environment and continue to Authentication
Aliases. You see the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser and can modify that alias.
-
Grant administrator roles to the user that you chose for the EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser
role.
- Go to and click Add.
- Select
Administrator, Deployer, Operator
roles in the Roles list and click
Search.
- In the Available user list, select the
EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser
role mapped
user and add it to the Mapped to role list. Click OK to apply all
changes.
- Log in to the Process Admin Console. In the Group
Management window, search for the tw_admins and tw_authors groups, and add the
EmbeddedECMTechnicalUser
role mapped user to both groups.
-
Restart the IBM Business Automation
Workflow deployment
manager.
-
Synchronize the custom profiles with the deployment manager profile.
For each custom profile, run the following command on the custom
node:
custom_profile_install_root/bin/syncNode.bat dmgr_hostname dmgr_soap_port -user de_admin_user -password de_admin_password
-
Configure the FileNet Content Platform Engine.
-
Log in to the IBM Administration Console for
Content Platform Engine on the FileNet
Content Platform Engine as a domain administrator.
-
If you are creating a new Content Platform Engine
environment, create the three object stores for the IBM Business
Automation Workflow document store, design object store, and
target object store. If you are augmenting IBM Case
Manager, you already have the design object
store and target object store and need to create only the IBM Business
Automation Workflow document store. Use the IBM Administration Console for
Content Platform Engine on the FileNet Content Platform Engine as described in Creating an object store. Use the following settings:
- Use the user from step 6 when granting
administrative access to this object store. You may also use a group that contains this user.
- Grant all users that work with IBM Business
Automation Workflow
basic access. You might want to use the #AUTHENTICATED-USERS security identifier as grantee to allow
all users to work with the object store. The individual instance objects are automatically protected
based on the teams you create in IBM Business
Automation Workflow.
- When you choose the add-ons, check that the following extensions are installed. The add-ons are
part of the default configuration.
- For IBM Business
Automation Workflow document store:
- Base Content Engine Extensions
- For IBM Business
Automation Workflow design object store and
target object store:
- Base Application Extension
- Base Content Engine Extensions
- Process Engine Extensions
- Publishing Extensions
- Stored Search Extensions
- Worksplace Access Roles Extensions
- Worksplace Base Extensions
- Worksplace E-mail Extensions
- Worksplace Forms Extensions
- Worksplace Template Extensions
- Worksplace XT Extensions
- After the object stores are created, the only access rights that you will need to add to the
administrative user is PRIVILEGED_WRITE. In IBM Administration Console for
Content Platform Engine on FileNet Content
Manager, the check box that you must select is
Modify certain system properties (in English).
- After the target object store is created, you must create a new "Workflow System" for it.
Open the target document store, go to , click New, and enter the values for your environment. Make a
note of the connection point name because you will need it in a later step when you run the case
configuration tasks in the Case configuration tool. You can
ignore the Broker servlet URL and Public listener URL
in the Process Orchestration section.
After the object stores are created, you can add a user with administrative permissions on the
object store. See
Update object store with
new users and groups. The permissions
that you must grant to the user are listed in
Permissions required for the new object store.
-
Running a command and then starting IBM Business
Automation Workflow finishes the configuration. However, you must
also verify that the configuration is working.
-
Run the setBPMExternalECM admin command to configure IBM Business
Automation Workflow to use an external Content Platform Engine.
- Ensure the IBM Business Automation
Workflow deployment manager and
the Content Platform Engine are running.
- Run wsadmin using the parameter -conntype SOAP from the
dmgr_profile_root/bin directory.
- Run the setBPMExternalECM admin command and save your changes. Use
NEW_EXTERNAL_OBJECT_STORE as the value for the
-ecmEnvironment parameter. For example:
Important: This command
results in execution times that exceed the default timeout setting for wsadmin command execution. To
change the default to allow for the execution time required, open the
profile_root/properties/soap.client.props file and change
the value for
com.ibm.SOAP.requestTimeout
to
0
, which means no
timeout. Remember to restore the previous value after running the command.
This command takes a
long time to run. Do not close the command
window.
wsadmin -conntype SOAP -port 8880 -host myHostName.mycompany.com -user admin_user -password admin_password -lang jython
wsadmin>print AdminTask.setBPMExternalECM(['-clientDownloadServicePort', '9081', '-de', 'De1', '-ceUrl', 'iiop://CE.mycompany.com:2809/FileNet/Engine', '-ecmEnvironment', 'NEW_EXTERNAL_OBJECT_STORE', '-domainName', 'p8domain', '-objectStoreName', 'bpmdocs', '-designObjectStoreName', 'bpmdos'])
wsadmin>AdminConfig.save()
Notes:
- The -objectStoreName and -designObjectStoreName
parameters are case-sensitive.
- If you see a message that updated .jar files exist on this deployment manager node machine, you
must manually copy the updated files to the other custom node machines.
See setBPMExternalECM command.
- If you started the deployment manager and node agents, manually restart them.
- Synchronize the configuration of the nodes.
- Restart the IBM Business
Automation Workflow deployment
environment by using the BPMConfig command. BPMConfig
-start
. See BPMConfig command-line utility.
-
Check for errors in the IBM Business
Automation Workflow logs.
If you discover errors, resolve them and restart the IBM Business
Automation Workflow server.
-
Check the CMIS component in the Component Health Center () to verify that your external Content Platform Engine is up and running. The switch to the external
Content Platform Engine removes the BPM content store configuration. Therefore, you cannot check
the EmbeddedECM component anymore. Instead, check the CMIS component. The CMIS component also
reports errors for the connection to the external Content Platform Engine. See Component Health Center.
You have now configured the external Content Platform Engine. To configure case management, do the remaining
steps.
- Optional:
If you are planning to use an external IBM Content
Navigator and it is not yet configured,
follow the instructions in Configuring IBM Business Automation Workflow with an external IBM Content Navigator to configure it. Then, return and complete
the remaining steps to configure case management..
-
Start the IBM Business Automation
Workflow
Case configuration tool by running
configmgr.exe in the directory
workflow-home/CaseManagement/configure.
If the tool is run on Windows, it should be run with administrative privileges.
Tip: If security is not a concern, enable saving passwords in the file system by clicking and selecting the Save all passwords check box.
-
Open the profile configuration file with the extension .cfgp that was
created when you configured your deployment environment.
This profile file, which contains the default settings, is located in either
dmgr-profile-root/CaseManagement/de
name/profiles/ICM_dev or
dmgr-profile-root/CaseManagement/de
name/profiles/ICM_prod.
-
Edit the setting for the remote Content Platform Engine
server connection properties.
-
Click .
-
In the first panel, click Test Connection to verify that the default
values are correct and then click Next.
-
In the second panel, click Test Connection to verify that the default
values are correct and then click Next.
-
In the third panel, replace the default settings for the embedded Content Platform Engine server with the settings for the external
Content Platform Engine and then click Test
Connection.
-
Click Finish.
-
Run the enabled configuration tasks in the order in which they are listed in the Case configuration tool.
For the details of each task, see the topic for your environment.
- Copy the ejb-lookup.jar
file from install_root/CaseManagement/configure/deploy to
the Content Platform Engine_install_root/lib/ext directory.
-
Restart the external Content Platform Engine to cause the
configuration changes to take effect.
-
Restart the IBM Business Automation
Workflow environment.
-
For verification, see the topic for your environment.