Integration of BRM within BPM does not work

Question

Hi,
I am working on a demo that shows the integration of BRM within BPM. A simple scenario with a gateway to decide for automatic or manual approval. I would like to use BRM to decide what to do: automatic or manual. For example: if amount <=25 then set status to automatic.
Unfortunately I can't get it to work. I took the examples I got on this years TechEd (BPM262), but this doesn't work at home
I also read through the blogs from Julius (BRM integration in BPM (XML Schema)), but these look very complicated. In my opinion it must be able to use business rules without any line of coding (despite what is stated in Julius blogs).
Ruleset trials and questions
- What is the returntype: the context or the parameter you want to be judged or returned?
- What are the parameters: context or the parameters you want to use?
- What is the result: context or the parameter you want to return?
- Why is it not possible to change the Overview tab, once you have created  the ruleset?
- How to implement within the process, I used the mapping activity, but I either get an error at selecting the ruleset, or I get an error during runtime (nullpointer).
The concept is very powerfull but I feel that the integration of BRM within BPM is not finished yet. Am I missing something? Anyone implemented a business rule within a process without any line of coding?
Kind regards
Twan

Answer 1

Hi arti, <br>
           I found two errors on server's error log while executing the same. I am enclosing initial section of errors. See if it's helpful to sort out the issue.
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1. System exception 
[EXCEPTION]
javax.ejb.EJBException: (Failed in component: sap.com/tcbrmsglxapp, BC-BMT-BRM-ENG) Exception raised from invocation of public void com.sap.brms.glx.ejb.RulesetInvokerBean.invokeRuleset(java.lang.String,commonj.sdo.helper.HelperContext,commonj.sdo.DataObject,commonj.sdo.DataObject) method on bean instance com.sap.brms.glx.ejb.RulesetInvokerBean@63f4db for bean sap.com/tcbrmsglxappannotation|com.sap.brms.glx.ejb.jarannotation|RulesetInvoker in application sap.com/tcbrmsglx~app.; nested exception is: java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.sap.brms.glx.ejb.SDODOMConversionHelper.copyElementDataToDataObject(SDODOMConversionHelper.java:254)
at com.sap.brms.glx.ejb.SDODOMConversionHelper.fillResponseDataObject(SDODOMConversionHelper.java:198)
at com.sap.brms.glx.ejb.RulesetInvokerBean.invokeRuleset(RulesetInvokerBean.java:200)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor1912.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
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2. An error occurred while executing transition MAPPING_Validate__Expense(Token_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(Instance_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(null,null,null,false),1), Instance_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(null,null,null,false), Context_0_DO_Context_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(Instance_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(null,null,null,false),Scope_3_Expense_Approval_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(Instance_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8(null,null,null,false)),1,true)): com.sap.glx.core.kernel.api.TransitionException: An exception occurred while executing the script "_Expense_Approval:MAPPING_Validate__Expense(
      com.sap.glx.adapter.BPMNAdapter:Token_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8 token,
      com.sap.glx.adapter.BPMNAdapter:Instance_0_Expense_Approval_Process_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8 parent,
      com.sap.glx.adapter.internal.ContainerAdapter:Context_0_DO_Context_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8 context_0){
  exit=new com.sap.glx.adapter.BPMNAdapter:Exit();
  exit:addParameter(token);
  exit:addParameter(parent);
  exit:addParameter(context_0);
  exit:onActivation("4B553CE4D75A4D7004B711DFAC81001372BEFBBB", parent, token);
  delete exit;
  controller=new com.sap.glx.adapter.internal.ExceptionAdapter:ExceptionController();
  controller:setContext(token);
  delete controller;
  mapper=new com.sap.glx.adapter.internal.Transformer:DataMapper();
  yves_in=new com.sap.glx.adapter.internal.Transformer:Data();
  yves_out=new com.sap.glx.adapter.internal.Transformer:Data();
  data=context_0:getData();
  yves_in:setData("sap.com/glx/", "$sap.com/glx/:DO_Context", data, "6536A68BEDF1903C9327404A8E4F756E");
  data=context_0:getData();
  scope=new com.sap.glx.adapter.internal.TypeRegistry:GenericScope(null, "6536A68BEDF1903C9327404A8E4F756E");
  copy=scope:copy(data);
  delete scope;
  yves_out:setData("sap.com/glx/", "$sap.com/glx/:DO_Context", copy, "6536A68BEDF1903C9327404A8E4F756E");
  mapper:map("4B553CE4D75CBE7404B711DFAA74001372BEFBBB_fb9d3700912540231d95cb19129723d8", yves_in, yves_out);
  data=yves_out:getData("sap.com/glx/", "$sap.com/glx/:DO_Context", "6536A68BEDF1903C9327404A8E4F756E");
  context_0:setData(data);
  delete yves_in;
  delete yves_out;
  delete mapper;
  token:state=3;
at com.sap.glx.core.kernel.execution.transition.ScriptTransition.execute(ScriptTransition.java:69)
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Regards,<br>
Pratik
<br>
Edited by: Pratik Khandelwal on Jan 25, 2010 10:26 AM<br>
Edited by: Pratik Khandelwal on Jan 25, 2010 10:29 AM<br>
Edited by: Pratik Khandelwal on Jan 25, 2010 10:29 AM