DataObject documentation

userguide/src/en/chapters/ch07b-BPMN-Constructs.xml

@@ -6159,4 +6159,48 @@ Exactly the same way, the list of groups that is configured as a potential start
    </programlisting>
 </para>
 </section>	
+
+<section id="dataobjects">
+      <title>Data objects</title>
+      <link linkend="experimental">
+      <emphasis role="bold">[EXPERIMENTAL]</emphasis>
+    </link>
+    <para>
+      BPMN provides the possibility to define data objects as part of a process or sub process element. According to the BPMN specification it's possible to include complex XML structures
+      that might be imported from XSD definitions. As a first start to support data objects in Activiti the folowing XSD types are supported:
+    </para>
+    <itemizedlist>
+      <programlisting>
+        &lt;dataObject id="dObj1" name="StringTest" itemSubjectRef="xsd:string"/&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+      <programlisting>
+        &lt;dataObject id="dObj2" name="BooleanTest" itemSubjectRef="xsd:boolean"/&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+      <programlisting>
+        &lt;dataObject id="dObj3" name="DateTest" itemSubjectRef="xsd:datetime"/&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+      <programlisting>
+        &lt;dataObject id="dObj4" name="DoubleTest" itemSubjectRef="xsd:double"/&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+      <programlisting>
+        &lt;dataObject id="dObj5" name="IntegerTest" itemSubjectRef="xsd:int"/&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+      <programlisting>
+        &lt;dataObject id="dObj6" name="LongTest" itemSubjectRef="xsd:long"/&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+    </itemizedlist>
+    <para>
+      The data object definitions will be automatically converted to process variables using the 'name' attribute value as the name for the new variable.
+      In addition to the definition of the data object Activiti also provides an extension element to assign a default value to the variable. The following BPMN snippet provides an example:
+    </para>
+    <programlisting>
+        &lt;process id="dataObjectScope" name="Data Object Scope" isExecutable="true"&gt;
+          &lt;dataObject id="dObj123" name="StringTest123" itemSubjectRef="xsd:string"&gt;
+            &lt;extensionElements&gt;
+              &lt;activiti:value&gt;Testing123&lt;/activiti:value&gt;
+            &lt;/extensionElements&gt;
+          &lt;/dataObject&gt;
+      </programlisting>
+</section>
+
 </chapter>