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IBM BPM in Action using WebSphere Lombardi Edition
“Process Optimizer” Hands-on Exercise
This lab will introduce you to the Lombardi Process Portal, which is an interface that enables process
participants to perform assigned tasks, view the history of tasks, and view the performance of their
processes and teams…and in general participate in business processes.
Recommended Approach:
1) Goto http://BPMSandbox.com and Watch the YouTube Demo Videos for this exercise, or Download the
full-length video here: http://tinyurl.com/BPMSandboxVideos
as seen below.
2) Come back here and follow the hands-on exercise instructions outlined in the Table of Contents on page #2.
The YouTube Demo Video for the “Order Fulfillment BPM End2End Scenario” exercise on
http://BPMSandbox.com looks like the following:
Full length videos downloadable here: http://tinyurl.com/BPMSandboxVideos
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IBM BPM in Action Hands-on Exercise – Process Optimizer
This lab will introduce you to WebSphere Lombardi Edition’s (Lombardi Edition) Optimizer, which is a tool
designed to help you understand and refine the Lombardi Edition process models. The Optimizer gives
you visibility and insight into your business processes.
The Optimizer allows you to optimize your processes during development and after deployment. As you
develop your processes you can run simulations to test and refine process designs before
implementation (that is, validate your overall process modeling strategy). After processes are up and
running, you can analyze them using historical data stored in the Performance Data Warehouse.
Running historical analyses using Lombardi Edition Optimizer enables you to measure and then improve
the efficiency of your processes by performing advanced what-if comparative analyses.
Lombardi Edition Optimizer
enables you to…
Benefit
Simulate process
performance
Understand process design issues that could affect performance
before process implementation
Identify bottlenecks and other
issues
Optimize processes already in production
Compare actual process
performance to simulations
Analyze how well your processes are doing compared to the goals
that you set
Compare simulations to
historical performance data
Analyze what would happen if you made specific changes to your
processes
Simultaneously analyze
multiple processes from a
single or multiple process
applications

Identify resources that are over or under-utilized across
processes and applications

Compare performance from month to month or quarter to
quarter for specific sets of processes

Experiment with the performance of multiple processes by
simulating the addition of resources to one or more participant
groups and finding the best results across processes and
workloads
In this lab, you will run a Single Simulation, an Optimization (Single Historical), and a Guided
Optimization. Specifically, you will perform these activities:
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IBM BPM IN ACTION HANDS-ON EXERCISE – PROCESS OPTIMIZER ............ 2
1.1 SET UP HISTORICAL DATA ............................................................... 4
1.1.1 START THE SERVER AND RESET THE HISTORICAL DATA .............. 4
1.2 SIMULATION .................................................................................. 7
1.2.1 SIMULATION VALUES FOR ACTIVITIES AND SWIM LANES .............. 7
1.2.2 RUN A SIMULATION ............................................................. 16
1.2.3 SHOW DIFFERENT HEAT MAPS .............................................. 24
1.3 OPTIMIZATION ............................................................................. 26
1.3.1 SINGLE HISTORICAL ............................................................ 27
1.3.2 SHOW HEAT MAP ................................................................ 29
1.4 GUIDED OPTIMIZATION ................................................................. 31
1.4.1 RUN A GUIDED OPTIMIZATION ............................................... 31
1.5 SUMMARY ................................................................................... 39
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1.1
Set up historical data
In this section, you will reset some of the historical data (for example, due dates) that was preloaded so
that you can see more features that would not have available without that historical data. These activities
will be performed outside of the Process Portal using the Process Admin Console.
1.1.1
Start the server and reset the historical data
If you already started the Lombardi Authoring Environment, skip step #1.
__1.
Start Lombardi Authoring Environment
__a.
If you are using the PoT VMWare, the Lombardi Authoring Environment should have
been started automatically. If you are not using the PoT VMWare, then:
__i.
__b.
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Find the Lombardi Authoring Environment icon on the desktop and doubleclick it. Be aware depending on the hardware the image is running on it might
take a few minutes to start:
Log in with User Name of tw_admin and password of tw_admin, then click the Login
button:
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When Lombardi Edition opens, you will be in the Process Center:
If not, click the shortcut link in the upper right corner to get there:
__c.
__2.
We will come back to the Authoring Environment after we reset the historical data.
Login to the Process Admin Console using these steps:
__a.
Start  Programs  IBM WebSphere Lombardi Edition 7  Lombardi Process
Admin Console
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If you are using a VMWare you may notice this time zone message. Just click OK and
continue with the lab.
While we showed here how to login using the Windows shortcut, you could have opened
your browser and pointed to the appropriate URL, such as:
http://[host_name]:[port]/ProcessAdmin
__i.
__3.
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Log in using the User Name tw_admin and Password tw_admin, then click
Login
Reset the OTB report distribution (OTB is out-of-the-box) using these steps:
__a.
In the left navigation pane, select SA UTILITIES  Set OTB Report Distribution
__b.
Under Settings use the drop-down list to select the Bpd Name as Order Fulfillment. In
Lombardi Edition, Bpd or BPD is Business Process Definition, which is the business
process model you model and run in Lombardi Edition.
__c.
Click OK
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__d.
1.2
You should see a message saying Success!
__i.
Click the Log out option to exit the Process Admin Console
__ii.
Close the browser
Simulation
In this section, you will see how simulation values are set within the Authoring Environment, run a
simulation, and see a heat map of the process.
1.2.1
Simulation values for activities and swim lanes
__1.
Take a look at how simulation values are set within the Authoring Environment
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__a.
If the Authoring Environment is not open, open it, and login as tw_admin and password
tw_admin.
__b.
Open the Order Fulfillment Demo. If you just started the Authoring Environment, it will
open up to the Process Center. On the same line as Order Fulfillment Demo, select
Open in Designer:
__i.
__c.
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If you had another application open in the Authoring Environment, you will first
go to the Process Center by clicking on Process Center short-cut, then click the
Open in Designer link as directed above:
Open the Order Fulfillment BPD by clicking Processes, then under Business Process
Definitions, double-click Order Fulfillment
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__d.
Examine the Simulation properties for the Analysts participant group:
__i.
Click on the Analysts swim lane
__ii.
Go to Properties and click on ofAnalysts. This will open the Participant Group
of Analysts.
Participant Groups
Participant group lane assignments ensure that any
activities that are not routed to a specific group or user
have an automatic default assignment.
Each lane that you create is assigned to the All Users
participant group by default. You can use this default
participant group for running and testing your BPD in the
Inspector. The All Users participant group includes all users
who are members of the tw_allusers security group, which
is a special security group that automatically includes all
users in the system. See the Administration Guide for more
information about the tw_allusers security group. See the
Authoring Environment User Guide topic: Creating a
participant group for more information about defining the
users that belong to a participant group.
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__e.
You can see the Simulation Properties that have been set for this group and the
Members of the group. The Simulation Properties allow you to set Capacity, Availability,
Efficiency, and Cost per Hour. The Simulation Properties for the Order Fulfillment
process application were already defined. When you are done, go ahead and close
ofAnalysts by clicking
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.
__f.
Repeat similar steps to see the Simulation Properties of the participant group
ofManagers. Hint: look at the Manager Swim lane. Close ofManagers.
__g.
Similar to Participant Group simulation properties, you can set simulation properties for
items in a Business Process Definition (BPD) .A BPD is a reusable model of a process
that defines what is common to all run-time instances of this process model. For
example, Start and End Events, estimates for task durations and probabilities for
gateways. These values could be saved to a Simulation profile that you could reuse in
your environment.
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__h.
Look at the simulation properties of a Start Event, Manual Start:
__i.
Click on the Manual Start
__ii.
Go to the Properties tab and click on Simulation.
__iii.
Note the Selected profile is June, which is a custom simulation profile created for
the Order Fulfillment process application. The Event is simulated in this profile is
selected, and the Firing Delay of this start event used a Fixed Distribution Type,
which fires every two days:
Simulation Profiles
A Simulation Profile allows you to provide for each item in
a process model, estimates for task duration, probabilities
for gateways, and other values on which to base your
simulations. Lombardi Edition provides a default simulation
profile that you can use or you can create one or more new
profiles. The advantage of profiles is that they let you
specify and save different estimates for specific situations
that you know might occur in your environment.
New simulation profiles can be created by clicking New.
Note that you can select a different profile for each activity.
Therefore, if you choose to create a new profile from an
activity, this profile does not get applied to all activities in
the process. See the Authoring Environment User Guide
topic: Setting up simulation profiles for instructions of
how to create a new profile.
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The Distribution Type can be set to Fixed, Uniform, or Normal by using the drop-down:
The following table defines the different Distribution Types.
Distribution
Type
__i.
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Values
Lombardi Edition Optimizer…
Fixed
The execution time in days, hours,
and minutes.
Uses the same specified value
each time.
Uniform
The average execution time and the
range (average plus or minus the
values that you specify) in days,
hours, and minutes.
Is equally likely to use each value
in the specified range.
Normal
The average execution time, the
range (average plus or minus the
values that you specify), and the
standard deviation in days, hours,
and minutes.
Is more likely to use values within
the specified range that are
closer to the specified average
instead of values that are more
or less than the average.
View the simulation properties of the Create Order activity. Note that it uses a Normal
Distribution. You can change the values and note the changes in the Normal curve.
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__j.
Change the distribution type to Uniform by using the drop-down. Note the change:
__k.
Change the distribution type back to Normal:
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__l.
Look at the simulation profile for the Manager Approval activity:
__m.
Look at the simulation profile for the Place Order in SAP activity:
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__n.
A Decision Gateway’s simulation properties are about outgoing flow percentages (what
percent of the time each flow will be followed). Look at the simulation profile for the
Approved decision gateway. The Yes flow will be followed 80% of the time.
__o.
Look at the simulation properties of a Timer associated with Get Vendor Responses.
Event is simulated in this profile tells the Optimizer to simulate the event and the event
firing conditions: Firing Delay Elapsed (timed delay), Activity Complete (event is
repeatable as long as the activity is not complete), and for this percentage of activities.
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__p.
Go ahead and close the Order Fulfillment BPD by clicking close. Do NOT save any
changes you may have made to the BPD.
1.2.2
Run a simulation
__2.
Follow these steps to run a simulation of the Order Fulfillment process.
__a.
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Open the Order Fulfillment BPD, and then click Start Simulation
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__b.
The Authoring Environment will switch to the Optimizer perspective. The table below
describes the different areas of this Perspective.
Section
Description
In the Analysis Scenarios, you can select the Mode, which can be:
1

Historical vs. Historical,

Historical vs. Simulation (How did I do),

Simulation vs. Historical (What if),

Simulation vs. Simulation,

Single Historical, and

Single Simulation.
These different scenarios can be saved after you execute one of them.
Simulation is used before you put the process in production, while
historical is used once you have the process in production and you want
to go down a process improvement path. In addition, you can compare
Historical versus Historical (for example, June results versus
December). Likewise, you could compare how you did versus how you
thought you would do (Historical versus Simulation), you could do some
what if analyses (Simulation versus Historical), and compare simulations
(Simulation versus Simulation.)
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Section
Description
In the Heatmap Settings, you can select the Visualization Mode for
the heat map diagram. The visualization modes can be:


2


3
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Time based:
o
Wait Time (elapsed time from when Lombardi Edition
generates a task and when user starts working on it;
claims it)
o
Execution Time (elapsed time from when user starts
working on a task and when user finishes working on it)
o
Total Time = Wait Time + Execution Time
o
Efficiency (compares expected KPI vs. actual execution
time)
Count based:
o
Waiting Activities (Count of tasks waiting to be worked
on)
o
Executing Activities (Count of tasks in process; users
have started working on them but have not completed
them)
o
Completed Activities (Count of completed tasks)
Path based:
o
Happy Path (How often best case is taken through a
process)
o
Exception Path (How often exception path is taken
through a process)
o
Path (results for all paths (Happy and Exception paths)
Metrics:
o
SLA (SLA violations per activity where they have been
defined)
o
Rework (If an activity is executed more than once in a
process instance)
The Optimizer displays a color-coded heat map to visually illustrate
where bottlenecks and other problems exist in the processes included in
your scenario, and how severe those issues are. The darker the halo
around an activity, the closer it is to the high end of the scale or range
that you specified in the Heatmap Settings view.
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Section
4
Description
The data displayed in the Live Reports view depends upon the current
editor and selection. For example, if you are examining a heat-mapped
process diagram and you have selected an activity in that diagram (e.g.
Manager Approval); the Live Reports view shows data specific to that
activity. If you had selected the Lombardi Edition process pool, it would
show data of the entire process.
Live Reports include charts for Instance Duration Trend, Instance
Duration Histogram, and Users also worked on. Below these charts
are section for Instance Analysis, KPI Analysis, and Activity
Analysis.
5
The Smart Start view directs you to the activities and processes that
deserve a closer look based on the most recently executed analysis
scenario and the current visualization mode. The Smart Start view
enables you to directly access:

Hotspots identified by the Optimizer when you run an analysis
scenario

Processes and participant groups included in the most recently
executed analysis scenario
The Recommendations view makes practical recommendations for
addressing issues that are identified in your processes, and suggestions
for how to optimize your process models. The recommendations may
encourage you to examine other visualization modes to gain a better
understanding of a particular pattern or behavior in your processes.
Resolving identified issues can involve questions such as:
6

Would different resource allocations resolve my current
bottlenecks? (Time and resource consumption)

Are my processes taking the paths that I expect them to? What
changes will ensure that they do? (Path optimization)

How are my largest loans going through the process? How does
that compare to my smaller loans? Why are very large loans
always late? (Segment optimization)
To get recommendations for a problematic Activity or other element in a
process, click an element with a halo around it in the heat map.
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__c.
From the Simulation, it seems that Get Vendor Responses and Manager Approval are
potential bottleneck areas. Before you roll out this process into production, you might
consider adding more Managers and Vendors to potentially reduce Wait Times.
__d.
Based on the Simulation results, let’s look at the Optimizer for recommendations on how
to improve the process.
__i.
Click on the Manager Approval task in the Diagram
__ii.
In the bottom right-hand, look at the Optimizer’s Recommendations
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__iii.
Double-click on Recommendations to maximize the list of recommendations.
These recommendations range from Launch Bypass Wizard, which is a Guided
Optimization, to adding more resources (managers) to Manager Approval
activity. In another section of the lab, we will explore the first recommendation.
__iv.
Double-click on Recommendations to minimize the list of recommendations.
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__e.
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To get more details about participant group Manager, click on Manager swim lane, then
go to Live Reports
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__f.
Double-click on the Live Reports tab. You can see the detailed report: not only the
trend and distribution charts are available, but below the chart there is detailed data for
each instance.
__g.
Double-click on the Live Reports tab to minimize it.
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1.2.3
Show different heat maps
__3.
Follow these steps to see different heat maps
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__a.
In the Heatmap Settings, change the Visualization Mode to Path
__b.
The heat map will show the Path diagram, which shows both the Happy Path and the
Exception Path, which are blue and red, respectively.
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How are Happy Path and Exception Path defined in the
process?
For each flow out of a decision gateway, you can click on
each flow and set the Line Type to be of either Happy
Path or Exception Path. In this case, the flow going into
Place Order in SAP was set as the Happy Path, while the
flow going from the decision gateway to Select Fulfillment
Option was set as the Exception Path.
__c.
In the Heatmap Settings, change the Visualization Mode to Rework. By default, an
Activity is considered Rework if it is executed more than once during a process instance.
However, you can change the default settings for the Rework KPI in the KPI tab for each
Activity.
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__d.
The Rework heat map shows that Select Fulfillment Option and Manager Approval tasks
are problem areas.
Simulation lets you consider possible problem areas before you put a process into production. In the next
section, we will move forward and assume that you put the process in production and you have some
historical data in your performance data warehouse.
1.3
Optimization
In this section, you will run one of the Optimizer’s Analysis Scenarios, Single Historical. This scenario
assumes that you have some historical data and you will use it to identify any areas of concerns by
looking at heat maps, path activities, and recommendations from the Optimizer. The six Analysis
Scenarios (Modes) were described earlier:
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●
Historical vs. Historical,
●
Historical vs. Simulation (How did I do),
●
Simulation vs. Historical (What if),
●
Simulation vs. Simulation,
●
Single Historical, and
●
Single Simulation.
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1.3.1
Single Historical
__1.
Explore Single Historical, which analyzes the data stored in the performance data warehouse
based on the scenario you select.
__a.
In Analysis Scenarios, change the Mode to Single Historical using the drop-down
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__b.
Under Selected Scenarios, click Select…, and then select All Available under
Historical Analysis Scenarios. All Available and all the ones labeled
are
out-of-the-box scenarios available for you to use. Their names are self-explanatory.
Likewise, you can create your own scenarios. See the Authoring Environment User
Guide for more information.
__c.
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Click Calculate to run the analysis
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__d.
The Rework heat map still shows Select Fulfillment Option and Manager Approval as
areas of concern.
1.3.2
Show heat map
__2.
Look at the Path heat map
__a.
Under Heatmap Settings, change the Visualization mode to Path
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__b.
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Click on the No (Exception Path), note how the Live Reports is refreshed and shows the
data for the No flow.
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1.4
Guided Optimization
In this section, we will run a Guided Optimization based on the Optimizer’s recommendations. This is
useful when you think there might be opportunities to use historical data to identify automation rules that
will make your process more efficient.
1.4.1
Run a guided optimization
__1.
In this section you will run a guided optimization to add a Bypass Activity.
__a.
Right-click on Manager Approval  Guided Optimization  Bypass Activity…
Important! The rules may not match in the next few
screens
Based on when you ran this lab and the last time you setup
the historical data, the rules identified by the Optimizer
might be slightly different. The overall steps will be the
same except for the rule implementation.
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__b.
Set the Variable to Predict to status, Confidence to Medium (70%), Complexity to
Normal (3), and leave all Variables to Consider checked, and then click Next >
__c.
The analysis results show that when the customer was Costco and the price was greater
than or equal to 12, 236, the manager rejected the order 83% of the time. Similarly, when
the customer was Target and the price was greater than or equal to 12, 236, the
manager rejected the order 75% of the time Therefore, because the Manager is a
bottleneck and they are mainly rejecting these orders, why don’t we automatically reject
orders that meet these conditions?
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__d.
Let’s automate this by creating a bypass activity with these steps:
__i.
Select Continue and Bypass Activity
__ii.
Click Next >
__iii.
If the Optimizer identified more than one rule, or if the rule is slightly different,
use the same steps here.
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__e.
Set the Bypass activity rules:
__i.
Check all rules
__ii.
Select Create with Rule Service
__iii.
Accept the default What-if-scenario name
__iv.
Check Pre-configure What-If Analysis
__v.
Click Finish.
We selected a rule service to decouple the rule from scripting activities. If the Optimizer
identified more than one rule, or if the rule is slightly different, use the same steps except
maybe change the What-if scenario name to something more appropriate to your rules.
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__f.
If you look at the Analysis Reports, you will see the new Rule and its status is Included.
The other possible rules were excluded because of the certainty level (less than 90%) or
because of lack of data. This screen shot may be different if your rule was different. Just
make sure there was at least one rule that was Included.
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__g.
__h.
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To see the rule that was created, switch to the Order Fulfillment BPD
__i.
Notice that the diagram was changed to add a bypass activity and decision
gateway (yellow highlight).
__ii.
Double-click on the bypass activity, Manager Approval bypass rule service
When the bypass rule service opens, click on Bypass Manager Approval rule
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__i.
Select row 1, by clicking on 1. The first row should be selected. Look at the Action
(THEN) rule. If sets the value of one to reject and the other indicating the bypass flag. If
the Optimizer identified more than one rule, or if the rule is slightly different, use the same
step and click on each row and note that the rule conditions and actions might be slightly
different.
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__j.
Similarly, look at the otherwise (last) row. Close the rule without saving any changes.
__k.
Close Order Fulfillment without saving any changes.
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Running by-pass rule service
You should note that if you did in fact want to save the
changes to Order Fulfillment and keep the bypass rule
service, you would have to add variables to support this
rule and complete the appropriate data-mapping. By
default, the data-mapping is left blank as shown in the
diagram below.
1.5
Summary
This concludes the Optimizer lab which is a tool designed to help you understand and refine Lombardi
Edition process models. The exercises should have helped you see how the Optimizer gives you visibility
and insight into your business processes before you put your processes into production (Simulation) and
while they are in production (Historical).
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