Chapter 8 Building an Executable BPM: Managing Data and Choreography

Data Transformations (Executable BPM)

A data transformation allows you to design a transformation on data and update the values of variables with new data. It is used to copy data from one variable to another.

Data transformations are usually expressed using XPath or XSLT language, which are languages that describe a way to locate, transform and process items in XML documents.

Each data transformation has a corresponding unique and mandatory assignment. You define a data transformation by selecting the target variable (Assigned Variable) you need to use from the General tab of the data transformation property sheet then the source variable (Input Variable) that contains the data to retrieve in the Transformation tab. A data transformation can have several variables as Input. In this case, Input Variable can remain undefined.

You can:

Transfer one or more source variables (Input Variable) to a target variable (Assigned Variable)
Transfer a message part (Input Part) from a source variable to a message part (Assigned Part) in a target variable

In BPEL languages, the data transformation can be used to define Assign activities when created from the process property sheet and Property aliases when created under the model. For more information see the "Working with BPEL4WS" chapter and the "Working with WS-BPEL" chapter.

In Sybase Integration Orchestrator the data transformation can be used to define Assign and Map activities. For more information see the "Working with Sybase WorkSpace Business Process".

Moving data transformations

When you move a data transformation between models a copy of the assigned variable stays in the source model, if the variable is used by processes in that model, as external shortcut of variables are not supported.

When you move a data transformation within the same model a shortcut of the assigned variable stays in the source process or package, if the variable is used by some processes in that package or composite process.