Activiti vs. Drools [was How do you use Grails Activiti Plugin]

[Brad Rhoads]

I was under the impression that Activiti and Drools did about the same
things. Could someone please explain the differences and when you'd
use one or the other (or the combination of the two)?

Also, the specific use case I'm planning to implement is this: I have
a digital library system. I need to setup rules/workflow like any user
can add a document and fill in basic metadata. But once a specified
set of metadata is complete, the document gets transferred from the
"anyone queue" to the "supervisor queue" where a supervisor will write
an abstract for the document. Once that's done, the document is
considered "complete". Ideally, I want to have an interface within
the application, so that these kinds of rules and resulting actions
can be defined dynamically. Which tool(s) should I look at to
implement this kind of logic?

Thanks!
---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 8:58 PM, limcheekin <limch...@vobject.com> wrote:
> Hi Arief,
>
> We welcome you to the online group.
>
> Yes, I do aware that Activiti support business rule task with Drools
> integration, but didn't explore it yet. Are you using the plugin with
> Drools rule engine?
>
> May I know what modification you made to the plugin? It will be great
> if you can contribute the modified source codes back to the plugin.
>
> Also, did you look into http://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm? Any idea
> how the activiti plugin make use of it?
>
> Wish to hear from you soon!
>
> Best regards,
> Chee Kin
>
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 8, 12:54 am, Arief Hidayat <real.sharin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Lim,
>>
>> First of all, I want to thank for your effort to create the plugin.
>> I'm developing application using activiti.
>> I've modified the 5.3 plugin a bit to let me use it with rule engine.
>>
>> Do you have any plan on how to integrate grails with other activiti modules
>> like modeler, cycle, etc?
>> That would be even more awesome.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> arief
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 11:02 PM, limcheekin <limchee...@vobject.com> wrote:
>> > Hi there,
>>
>> > May I know how do you use the plugin?
>>
>> > Did you use it in production environment or still evaluating it, or
>> > something else?
>>
>> > I'd love to hear your sharing.
>>
>> > Best regards,
>> > Chee Kin

[Chee Kin Lim]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for writing.

The subject line of this post should change to "Activiti and Drools" instead of "Activiti vs. Drools".

First of all, Drools is a rule engine, not a BPM/Workflow engine, you can find out more about rule engine in general here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_engine and specifically http://www.jboss.org/drools. Drools have a workflow component known as Drools Flow last time and spin off to become jBpm 5 now.

To consider use Drools or not in your project, you need to think about whether your application business rules/logic always change and it need dynamic rules capability that allow decision logic changing in production runtime environment? The dynamic rules logic will be implemented as decision node (diamond shape) in BPMN diagram. If the answer is no, your application is not going to need Drools and no point introduce unnecessary complexity to your application.

I hope this help. Other group members who have experience using Drools in Activiti may answer your question better (which I don't).

Best regards,
Chee Kin

[RichardP]

Hi Brad,

maybe off-topic here, but the things you want can be easily
implemented with Alfresco.
Alfresco is the open-source document management system, where you can
specify document types for the specific metadata. It also has a
workflow component where you can specify actions on documents /
folders.

greetings,
Richard

On 12 apr, 04:03, Chee Kin Lim <limchee...@vobject.com> wrote:
> Hi Brad,
>
> Thanks for writing.
>
> The subject line of this post should change to "Activiti and Drools" instead
> of "Activiti vs. Drools".
>
> First of all, Drools is a rule engine, not a BPM/Workflow engine, you can

> find out more about rule engine in general herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_engineand specificallyhttp://www.jboss.org/drools. Drools have a workflow component known as

> > On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 8:58 PM, limcheekin <limchee...@vobject.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Arief,
>
> > > We welcome you to the online group.
>
> > > Yes, I do aware that Activiti support business rule task with Drools
> > > integration, but didn't explore it yet. Are you using the plugin with
> > > Drools rule engine?
>
> > > May I know what modification you made to the plugin? It will be great
> > > if you can contribute the modified source codes back to the plugin.
>

> > > Also, did you look intohttp://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm?Any idea

[bauna]

Hi Brad,
Drools is not just a Rule Engine, it started that way but then it
evolved to a whole Business Logic integration Platform which provides
a unified and integrated platform for Rules, Workflow and Event
Processing. The BPM/Workflow engine is jBPM 5[1] former known as
drools-flow.

And if you want to use drools inside a grails app I strongly recommend
to use drools-gorm plugin [2][3] (I have updated it to use the latest
drools and jBPM 5 stable versions ;-))

So don't hesitate to contact me if you have further questions on
drools or drools-gorm.

[1] http://www.jboss.org/drools/drools-flow.html
[2] http://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm
[2] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm
[3] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm-example

Regards,
--
Pablo Nussembaum

On Apr 11, 4:47 pm, Brad Rhoads <bdr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was under the impression that Activiti and Drools did about the same
> things. Could someone please explain the differences and when you'd
> use one or the other (or the combination of the two)?
>
> Also, the specific use case I'm planning to implement is this: I have
> a digital library system. I need to setup rules/workflow like any user
> can add a document and fill in basic metadata. But once a specified
> set of metadata is complete, the document gets transferred from the
> "anyone queue" to the "supervisor queue" where a supervisor will write
> an abstract for the document. Once that's done, the document is
> considered "complete".   Ideally, I want to have an interface within
> the application, so that these kinds of rules and resulting actions
> can be defined dynamically. Which tool(s) should I look at to
> implement this kind of logic?
>
> Thanks!
> ---------------------------www.maf.org/rhoadswww.ontherhoads.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 8:58 PM, limcheekin <limchee...@vobject.com> wrote:
> > Hi Arief,
>
> > We welcome you to the online group.
>
> > Yes, I do aware that Activiti support business rule task with Drools
> > integration, but didn't explore it yet. Are you using the plugin with
> > Drools rule engine?
>
> > May I know what modification you made to the plugin? It will be great
> > if you can contribute the modified source codes back to the plugin.
>

> > Also, did you look intohttp://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm?Any idea

[Chee Kin Lim]

Hi Pablo Nussembaum,

We welcome you to the group! Thanks for creating the drools-gorm plugin.

I did aware about the drools-gorm plugin and share it to the group members in my previous post.

By the way, we are not sure how activiti plugin can be used with the drools-gorm plugin, it will be great if you can elaborate more here?

Best regards,
Chee Kin

[Brad Rhoads]

Thanks! I'll check it out as soon as I get a chance. But that does
bring me to another question I've had - what's the difference between
the drools plugin and grools-gorm plugin?

---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Bauna <bau...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Brad,
> Drools is not just a Rule Engine, it started that way but then it
> evolved to a whole Business Logic integration Platform which provides
> a unified and integrated platform for Rules, Workflow and Event
> Processing. The BPM/Workflow engine is jBPM 5[1] former known as
> drools-flow.
>
> And if you want to use drools inside a grails app I strongly recommend
> to use drools-gorm plugin [2][3] (I have updated it to use the latest
> drools and jBPM 5 stable versions ;-))
>
> So don't hesitate to contact me if you have further questions on
> drools or drools-gorm.
>
> [1] http://www.jboss.org/drools/drools-flow.html
> [2] http://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm
> [2] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm
> [3] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm-example
>
> Regards,
> --
> Pablo Nussembaum
>
> On Apr 11, 4:47 pm, Brad Rhoads <bdr...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I was under the impression that Activiti and Drools did about the same
>> things. Could someone please explain the differences and when you'd
>> use one or the other (or the combination of the two)?
>>
>> Also, the specific use case I'm planning to implement is this: I have
>> a digital library system. I need to setup rules/workflow like any user
>> can add a document and fill in basic metadata. But once a specified
>> set of metadata is complete, the document gets transferred from the
>> "anyone queue" to the "supervisor queue" where a supervisor will write
>> an abstract for the document. Once that's done, the document is
>> considered "complete".   Ideally, I want to have an interface within
>> the application, so that these kinds of rules and resulting actions
>> can be defined dynamically. Which tool(s) should I look at to
>> implement this kind of logic?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> ---------------------------www.maf.org/rhoadswww.ontherhoads.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 8:58 PM, limcheekin <limchee...@vobject.com> wrote:
>> > Hi Arief,
>>
>> > We welcome you to the online group.
>>
>> > Yes, I do aware that Activiti support business rule task with Drools
>> > integration, but didn't explore it yet. Are you using the plugin with
>> > Drools rule engine?
>>
>> > May I know what modification you made to the plugin? It will be great
>> > if you can contribute the modified source codes back to the plugin.
>>

>> > Also, did you look intohttp://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm?Any idea

[Bauna]

Hi Brad,
Drools is not just a Rule Engine, it started that way but then it
evolved to a whole Business Logic integration Platform which provides
a unified and integrated platform for Rules, Workflow and Event
Processing. The BPM/Workflow engine is jBPM 5[1] former known as
drools-flow.

And if you want to use drools inside a grails app I strongly recommend
to use drools-gorm plugin [2][3] (I have updated it to use the latest
drools and jBPM 5 stable versions ;-))

So don't hesitate to contact me if you have further questions on
drools or drools-gorm.

[1] http://www.jboss.org/drools/drools-flow.html
[2] http://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm
[2] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm
[3] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm-example

Regards,
--
Pablo Nussembaum

On Apr 11, 4:47 pm, Brad Rhoads <bdr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was under the impression that Activiti and Drools did about the same
> things. Could someone please explain the differences and when you'd
> use one or the other (or the combination of the two)?
>
> Also, the specific use case I'm planning to implement is this: I have
> a digital library system. I need to setup rules/workflow like any user
> can add a document and fill in basic metadata. But once a specified
> set of metadata is complete, the document gets transferred from the
> "anyone queue" to the "supervisor queue" where a supervisor will write
> an abstract for the document. Once that's done, the document is
> considered "complete".   Ideally, I want to have an interface within
> the application, so that these kinds of rules and resulting actions
> can be defined dynamically. Which tool(s) should I look at to
> implement this kind of logic?
>
> Thanks!
> ---------------------------www.maf.org/rhoadswww.ontherhoads.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 8:58 PM, limcheekin <limchee...@vobject.com> wrote:
> > Hi Arief,
>
> > We welcome you to the online group.
>
> > Yes, I do aware that Activiti support business rule task with Drools
> > integration, but didn't explore it yet. Are you using the plugin with
> > Drools rule engine?
>
> > May I know what modification you made to the plugin? It will be great
> > if you can contribute the modified source codes back to the plugin.
>

> > Also, did you look intohttp://grails.org/plugin/drools-gorm?Any idea

[Pablo Nussembaum]

The drools plugin only let you use drools-core, aka the rule engine part. On the other hand drools-gorm plugin is more feature complete, and more important it let you use drools-core and jBPM 5 and
persist your gorm domain object inside drools/jBPM sessions.

[limcheekin]

Hi Pablo Nussembaum,

Thanks for writing.

Can I used drools-gorm plugin without jBPM 5?

Best regards,
Chee Kin

[Pablo Nussembaum]

I'm not sure how to do the integration although I have read that activiti has added drools support some weeks ago so you can use that but use drools ksessions that are provided by the drools-gorm plugin.

[Chee Kin Lim]

Thanks for quick response.

Hm... Anyone here have experience using drools with activiti, we would like to hear more from you. :)

Best regards,
Chee Kin

[Pablo Nussembaum]

Sure, but you will need to put something in your grails-app/conf/BuildConfig.groovy so the jbpm-flow.jar is not added to your app war.

On 04/21/2011 09:52 AM, limcheekin wrote:
> Hi Pablo Nussembaum,
>
> Thanks for writing.
>

> Can I used drools-gorm plugin without jBPM 5?ur

[Brad Rhoads]

What version of Grails does drools-gorm need? I updated the demo to
grails 1.3.7, but it doesn't build.
I've attached a log of what I did.

BTW - the demo has your personal directory specified for the plugin in
its buildconfig.

Thanks!
---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

[Pablo Nussembaum]

The plugin uses grails 1.3.5
I'll check if I can update the plugin to don't require a specific grails version.

You can also try cloning from github and change the grails app.grails.version=1.3.5 inside application.properties file, and let me know if every works ;-)

[Pablo Nussembaum]

Hey Brad,
I've read the error log more carefully and it seems that some class/interface from spring has changed. I'll try to figure out an let you know.

Regarding the demo, I did it before the plugin was upload to the repo. I'll update it.

Thanks,

On 04/21/2011 03:26 PM, Brad Rhoads wrote:

[Brad Rhoads]

Thanks! Have a great Easter.
---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org

[Pablo Nussembaum]

Hi Brad,
I created a branch[1] to update versions to grails 1.3.7 and all test pass. Can you give more info of your environment? Or try with this version?

Thanks,
[1] https://github.com/bauna/drools-gorm/tree/grails137

--
bauna

[Brad Rhoads]

Thanks, so much! I'll probably won't be able to work on this until
Monday. I'm sort of cheating, just checking email today :)!
---------------------------
www.maf.org/rhoads
www.ontherhoads.org