Using Camunda Business Processes

Liferay 7.4+, and all quarterly releases

Liferay’s native workflow features work for many business processes requiring basic review and approval. If your business process management (BPM) needs are more complex, you can connect Liferay to Camunda. Its advanced automated business processes use the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard and its decision rules use Decision Model and Notation (DMN).

Connecting Liferay to Camunda

First, enable outbound communication from the Liferay Connector in Camunda to Liferay’s APIs:

1. In your Camunda instance, install and begin configuring the Liferay Connector.

2. In Liferay, authorize the connection to Liferay’s APIs.

   • Add an OAuth 2.0 application using the Client Credentials flow. Make sure you select a user with the appropriate Liferay permissions for the API calls.
   • Copy the client ID and secret.

3. Back in Camunda, provide the Client ID, Secret, and Token Endpoint URL to the Liferay Connector configuration.

4. Complete the connection and craft your processes and decision rules in Camunda.

With the outbound connection, you can call Liferay’s APIs from Camunda.

You can also enable inbound communication from Liferay’s webhook object actions, so you can send payloads from Liferay objects to your Camunda processes:

1. In Camunda, design a webhook-triggered process:

   • In your BPMN diagram, use a Start Event or Intermediate Catch Event with the Liferay Webhook Connector template.
   • Configure the Webhook ID (part of the incoming URL) and optionally set up Secret-based authorization for security. Use Camunda Secrets for secure storage.
   • If desired, define Activation Conditions (FEEL expressions) to filter incoming messages and Correlation Keys (FEEL expressions) to link messages to existing process instances.

2. In Camunda, deploy the diagram, then copy the Webhook URL from the Camunda Modeler’s properties panel.

3. In Liferay, configure a webhook action in a Liferay object (or another event source):

   • Set the webhook URL to the one copied from Camunda.
   • If you set a secret in Camunda, use it in Liferay’s webhook configuration.

4. In Camunda, map the incoming data. While mapping variables, use result variables or result expressions with FEEL to extract and store data from the incoming Liferay webhook payload.

With the inbound connection, you can trigger events in Camunda from Liferay objects and other webhook event sources.

Refer to the Camunda documentation for more information.