It is no longer far, far away...
Project Galaxy (now called SAP Netweaver BPM) is to be released in July 2008 for Ramp Up. For general release 2009.

What is SAP NetWeaver BPM It is key to SAP’s SOA offering and could be described very, very simplistically as workflow across SAP and non SAP using webservices. It is any easy way to build the best business process for your company using existing systems, legacy systems and SAP systems.

If you work with one of the following you need to know about this: SOA, CAF, Guided Procedures, Workflow, PI / XI

It has 3 parts:

• The process composer. You build the business processes based on the business process modeling notation (BPMN) standard here. It is integrated into the Eclipse development framework together with a rules composer tool for modeling of business rules.
• The process server which is based on Java EE. This runs the models.
• The process desk which is the user interface to their work / tasks. This can use forms, interactive screens and collaboration tasks

Here you can see it in the latest NetWeaver Developer Studio (Eclipse)

SAP UK will be running the ramp up courses in the near, near future. If you too would like to know more then please contact SAP UK Education to reserve your place.


Below is an extract from "A Hitchhiker's Guide To 'Galaxy'":

BPM for the process-challenged

To understand how SAP NetWeaver BPM colleagues work together, it helps to have a basic understanding of process modeling.

Take a simple business process such as "approve/reject loan application." A bank employee should be able to run this process to determine whether a customer can be approved for a loan. The customer is required to enter his name, age, outstanding debt, and annual income. The process is to call a Web service that calculates a credit score using these values.

Knowing the required structure and data, the business process expert can compose the process by defining:

• the steps in the process
• the sequence of the steps (control flow)
• how the data is pushed through the sequence of steps (data flow)
• the Web services needed (here, a Web service that calculates credit score)
• the user interface for the required input (for age, income, and so on)

Figure 1 represents how this process might look in the process composer of SAP NetWeaver BPM.

Now, this is what a lot of BPM solutions let you accomplish. The new release of SAP NetWeaver BPM will offer intelligent integration with SAP NetWeaver BRM, in which the user can define the relevant business rules.

For simplicity's sake, let's assume that there are only five possible credit scores (1-5) and that a customer must have a credit score higher than 3 to be approved - these are examples of business rules. Instead of programming or scripting the rule into the process, the user can model the rule in SAP NetWeaver BRM. The rule, once defined, is then stored as part of the process model. At runtime, the process calls the rule as defined in SAP NetWeaver BPM.

An externalized BRM solution like this allows users to frequently and easily modify business rules to keep the processes that call them flexible. For example, a bank may want to increase the minimum credit score to attract more customers in a highly competitive market, or decrease the minimum credit score when faced with ominous macroeconomic factors, such as the credit crunch. To do this, the user enters the business rule in the BRM solution, and the process calls on it at runtime, much like it calls a Web service. The user needs only to change the business rule in one location in SAP NetWeaver BRM and it can be called as often as he likes - from other processes as well.

In the next round of functionality, users will be able to change business rules stored in the central rules repository directly within the process composer of SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management. With this tight integration between SAP NetWeaver BPM and SAP NetWeaver BRM, not only is SAP making it easier for users to model processes, the company is also saving them a lot of time and confusion by providing for a business rule repository externalized from yet tightly integrated with the process modeling. SAP Business Rules Management is also available as a standalone solution."

To find out more visit:

SDN
www.sdn.sap.com
Look for the tab BPX Community (Business Process Expert Community)

SAP Press release:
http://www.sap.com/about/press/press.epx?pressid=9452&response=shared,

COMPONENTS & TOOLS OF SAP NetWeaver
SAP NetWeaver BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
http://www.sap.com/platform/netweaver/components/sapnetweaverbpm/index.epx