The new BPM console approaches it's first milestone and I'd like to use that opportunity to introduce you to the most important changes and new features.


Moving to GWT
More and more JBoss projects are moving to GWT. And they do it for a good reason:

• If you are familiar with Java development and don't want to become the next web developer expert, then GWT is a good choice. With GWT you can stick to eclipse, fire up a debugger and write unit tests.
• It has a rich set of UI widgets that you can use out of the box. The widgets also force a common look and feel across implementations.

GWT is already quiet modular and it will allow for integration of consoles across projects. Another side effect is, that you can easily take a GWT application, or pieces of it, and hook it up with existing web applications. For instance this would allow users to embed the task management functionality of the BPM console with their own intranet.


Improve on BAM and BI functionality
Probably the biggest drawback of the current console is lack of BAM and BI features.


Improving on BAM and BI is not going to happen within a day, but you could expect to see the first metrics and stats in early releases and we try to add more bits and pieces while we move towards a full fledged BAM console. Because this going to overlap in both functionality and technology with the Service Activity Monitoring project, interested readers should have an eye on SAM as well.


How to move forward
To begin with, we are going to provide a replacement for the existing jBPM console based on GWT. It will retain the current features and provide additional BI functionality. Initially we are going to leverage the existing jBPM3 backend and then gradually enrich it with SAM components or even replace it at all.