BPM OData Service

To access the BPM OData service, the following role needs to be assigned to you:

• SAP_BPM_ODATA

In addition, you need the necessary permissions to execute specific actions on BPM entities. For example, you can only claim a task if you are a potential owner. To start a process, the role SAP_BPM_TRIGGER_EVENT must be assigned to you. The additionally needed permissions are listed as prerequisites in the respective sections, for example, in BPM OData Service for Accessing BPM Tasks, BPM OData Service for Accessing BPM Task Data, or BPM OData Service for Starting BPM Processes.

For more general information about BPM roles, see Authorizations and Roles.

With the help of the BPM OData service you can access the following BPM data and operations from custom UIs:

• BPM task data and operations on the task (BPM task metadata, BPM task input and output data, claim BPM tasks, complete BPM tasks)
• Value help (bind the user interface directly, expose the services of value help)
• BPM process start (get the active process definition, start a process)

To access BPM task and task data, the following services are available:

• BPM Tasks OData service (tasks.svc) to access task metadata
• BPM Task Data OData service (taskdata.svc) to access input and output data

The data that is exposed by an OData service is based on an underlying abstract data model. This data model is called Entity Data Model (EDM). The data types of the BPM data are modeled during design time. The format used to model these data types is the XML Schema Definition (XSD). The EDM of the BPM OData service is generated at runtime. The EDM can be inspected using the standard OData operation $metadata.

For general information about OData, see http://www.odata.org/introduction.

The BPM OData service is available via a defined URL. The URL is composed as follows:

http://<host>:<port>/bpmodata/<service_name>/<path_segment(s)>/<OData_resource_path_and_query_options>

You need to know the host name and the server port used to connect to SAP BPM. The keyword bpmodata is then followed by the name of the specific service you want to use.

The path segment is specific to the service and is not always needed. The last part of the URL is the OData resource path and the query. The OData resource path specifies the resource you want to access or the operation you want to perform.

In BPM, we use IDs to identify different artifacts, for example, task instances. IDs can be represented in two different formats: hexadecimal and URI. The BPM OData service can handle both formats.

Example Hexadecimal

Sample ID: d6e6590d109d11e39633000000288732

Example URI

Sample ID: bpm://bpm.sap.com/task-instance/d81fe974703611e0803800000156fd47

An ID in URI format contained in a URL needs to be URL-encoded as follows: bpm%3A%2F%2Fbpm.sap.com%2Ftask-instance%2Fd6e6590d109d11e39633000000288732