Bonita BPM 7.5.0 beta is out!

Qualification

This is my opinion of 7.5.0-BETA-02 release as announced and looked at. This is not the final release of 7.5.0 and as such is limited only to what Bonitasoft have made public. It is possible that the final public release will either have more or less features. Until it's released there is no way of telling.

According to Bonitasoft's Release Strategy here this Minor release doesn't disappoint, and to remind everyone what a Minor Release is, here is the information:

Minor release: Version x.Y.z
This version is released every 6 months (except when there is a major release) and includes new features in the product. A beta version is shared with you a few months before the actual release, so you can have a first look at what’s coming, and give us feedback on the new features we’re building.

Here is my take:

Living Application Development and Deployment

Integration of SSO SAML 2.0 - ONLY for Subscription users

New wizard to import a process in the studio & compare the artifacts - Interesting and looks good, however missed the opportunity to update the one thing that really screws things up for everyone - BDM is still a single ZIP file. This is the one thing that annoys many people and it's still not done.

I have been told it will be done but not when...

Industrialization of Living Application (in Studio) - This looks interesting though there is no documentation as yet to say how to use it.

UI personalization
New management of date/time - this will help everyone who deals with timezone processing

Technology updates

Full Java 8 support - at last full support of Java 8, though it worked anyway for the most part

Support of Microsoft Edge - less said :) does anyone use Edge?
Removed support - nothing to say

Other dependency updates - always good to keep up to date, however there is nothing to say how this impacts us the developers. For example basic SQL JOIN across BDMs is not possible

API removals - nothing to say

Breaking changes
UI Designer - this is a big thing for developers - you must include your Ui-bootstrap.js yourself in the future if needed, it's no longer default.

Forms, pages, layouts CSS cleaned - check you page for formatting issues and apply the recommended fix.

Limitations and known issues - nothing to say

Summary

Is it worth upgrading - for me - no, unless you require SAML 2.0, and/or Java 8 specific code (in extension points) and/or Timezone date/time manipulation.

There may be many other things to consider of course, but this is a minor release after all, not a major one.

That being said, there are things this user was hoping for,

• Separate BDM definitions to stop the overwriting fiasco
• Support of Tomcat 8
• CMMN - Case Management Model and Notation
• DMN - Decision Model and Notation
• A Tab on the standard User portal page for Applications. We can see Tasks, Cases, and Processes but WHY can't we see a list of Applications? This is just madness as far as I'm concerned.

I suppose we just have to wait to either 7.6 or 8...

That's my take on this minor release 7.5.0.

This is a personal opinion only and not a recommendation to not it's only my take. I don't need the specifics of SAML or Java 8, though I might need Timezone...maybe I will upgrade...

I look forward to hearing other peoples opinion,

regards
Seán

Thanks for your feedback Seán!

Let me try to give you more insight based on your feedback:

• New wizard to import a process in the studio & compare the artifacts.
  • Interesting and looks good, however missed the opportunity to update the one thing that really screws things up for everyone.
• BDM is still a single ZIP file. This is the one thing that annoys many people and it's still not done.
  • The BDM is actually store as an XML file since the version 7.4.0. This enables people who use external VCS system to merge two BDM. This is not perfect as this is not integrated in the Studio yet, I agree, but this was the first step toward a better way to merge two BDMs.
• Industrialization of Living Application (in Studio)
  • This looks interesting though there is no documentation as yet to say how to use it. I agree with you and have shared this feedback internally.
• Support of Microsoft Edge - less said :) does anyone use Edge?
  • Yes, actually we see more and more large corporations giving up IE 10/11 to move to Edge
• Other dependency updates
  • For JPA 2.1, no impact identified
• Future plans:
  • Regarding DMN and CMMN, we’re experimenting it but we have no plans in our roadmap for a short term implementation. Do you have specific use cases that require these standards you’d like to share?
  • For the support of Tomcat 8, this is identified and will come soon.
  • Regarding the management of the BDM, we’re looking at improvement both from the Studio and Production server perspective. These improvements will come soon. For the applications, for now it still available from the Administrator view. The idea is to provide unique URLs for users to access directly the applications they’re meant to use.

Thanks Lionel,

re BDM - I know it's coming but sooner would be nicer... :)

re Applications, Sorry but I think this is a big miss from Bonitasoft point of view.

On the User screen we have Tasks, Cases and Processes Tabs but where are Applications? It's a very logical extension to what you are trying to do with the whole concept of Applications.

I have a Bonitasoft System that wants me to use Applications, the Getting Started Tutorial even starts with the concept of an Applications, but where on a USER screen can I see the applications - nowhere! It's basically wrong.

The Application tab in the Administrator's view is for Administering the Application not for executing the application, so this is useless for my thinking...

All you have to do is:

1) duplicate the Processes Tab, call it Applications
2) in the second column list the Applications

...
Change Management
Leave Request
Sickness Advisory
Travel Request
...

etc.

3) in the 3rd Column have the Application Description and a Start Application link that starts the application.

Easy! And will give people more definition on what Applications are, and how they will benefit the user community.

If you were really interested in Applications you could also use the 1st column for Application Groupings - This could be the Subscription Advantage whereas Community only gets the full list of applications

...
HR
Finance
Purchasing
etc.
...

Thanks for listening.

regards
Seán

Hi Sean,

Thanks a lot for your comment.

Let me summarize our position on the Bonita Portal and Living Applications.

The Portal has two functions:
- The Portal for administration to administrate your processes, your organisation, and your applications.
- The Portal for users. This can be considered as a « BPM » view we propose to manage the BPM cases and tasks. It can be considered as an application to manage the BPM processes.
From a conceptual point of view, the Portal User is just an Application… like the other Living Applications (conceptually, not technically for the moment).

A Living Application on the other hand, is dedicated to a specific use-case, a business, a persona, … It is independent from the others LA. There is no reason to have a link to other LAs in the menu of an LA. You can do it but it strongly dependent on the interaction you may want between these different LAs, on your use case, on your users, …
So for the same reason we do not want to include systematically a link to all application in the Portal User if it does not make sense. Nevertheless you can do it with the Custom Profile capabilities in version Efficiency (create a custom menu with link to other LAs).

To answer to your point on the adoption of Living Application : we think this adoption will come first with a better integration of Living App development in the Bonita Studio. We are working on it in the coming release.

I hope it answer your point and help to better understand the Bonitasoft position on that subject.

Philippe Laumay
Product Marketing Manager