Solving BPM PS6 (11.1.1.7) Webform Rendering Issue

When the server host name is not properly set during SOA installation, BPM picks up the default server URL while rendering webforms. This could cause rendering issue since webform expects full server hostname (localhost or short server hostname will not render the webform content).

Check out here for further configuration required for BPM PS6 WebForms...

Often the easier fix would be to manually update the host name in the enterprise manager for each of the human tasks in the BPM process. But that could be time consuming especially if you have many human tasks in your process and redo this every time you redeploy the process.

To have a permanent fix in place so that all human task webforms in future use the fully qualified hostname, set the FusionAppsFrontEndHostUrl property in your soa-infra as shown below;

1. Login to EM console as administrator (eg. weblogic)

2. Expand SOA, Right-Click on soa-infra -> choose SOA Administration -> Workflow Properties

3. In the resulting "Workflow Notification Properties" screen click "More Workflow Notification Configuration Properties..."

4. Enter the required fully qualified URL in the "FusionAppsFrontEndHostUrl" property in the following format;
*=http://hostname:port

5. Click on "Apply" and save the settings.

Henceforth, all BPM deployments would make use of the FusionAppsFrontEndHostUrl to render the forms.

BPM 11.1.1.7 Composer Web Form Creation

Web Forms are one of the most anticipated features delivered as part of the latest Oracle BPM PS6 release (11.1.1.7). What is so special about it? Well, until PS5 Oracle BPM supported only one form of human task UI development - the out of the box ADF style of development which required the use of Oracle JDeveloper IDE and in complex scenarios invariably required the help of IT dept.

Starting PS6, Oracle BPM supports Web Forms which is a welcome feature especially for business analysts/process owners who have very high business process knowledge but little IT/development. Oracle BPM PS6 allows business users to create & implement a complete end-to-end business process (including user task UIs) from a blank canvas via their web browsers.

However, while trying to create a web form from BPM composer, you may encounter the following error;

Error getting form: OrderProcessForm
Caused by: Could not instantiate form: got wrong status=500

This is just a configuration issue which can be resolved in a jiffy.

Just make a note of the fully qualified machine hostname where BPM PS6 is installed.
For eg., sathyam-lap.oracle.com

1. Login to WebLogic console [http://sathyam-lap.oracle.com:7001/console]
2. Expand Environment and choose Servers from the "Domain Structure" panel

3. Click on the managed server where SOA/BPM is installed from the list of servers [Generally, soa_server1 on port 8001]
4. In the "Settings for soa_server1" page, choose "Protocols" tab from top menu & "HTTP" tab in the sub menu bar [You can update this for all servers to keep the URLs uniform]
5. Update the "Frontend Host" entry with the fully qualified machine hostname

Now, login to BPM composer and try to create/access your webform and it must be rendered properly.
Note that you must always access all server URLs using the fully qualified hostname
eg., http://sathyam-lap.oracle.com:8001/bpm/composer