Getting started with BOP4: Cordys Academy self study Training

 
I have received several requests to inform people on “how to start off with BOP4”:
Where to begin, how to learn about the features and how to get hands-on experience?

The good news: Cordys has recognized this need!
One of the reasons I have become eager to adopt Cordys BOP4 is the simple fact that Cordys Academy offers high quality training facilities.

Not just the conventional classroom courses: Also a great computer based BOP4 fundamentals! For free, and it can be taken anytime, anywhere!

The Cordys Academy is offering basically a complete package, consisting of the following:

-          Self study environment

Link: https://wiki.cordys.com/display/acorg/Cordys+BOP-4+Self+Study+Training+Environment

-          Fundamentals Tutorial

Link: https://wiki.cordys.com/display/acorg/Cordys+Fundamentals+BOP-4

-          Several advanced topics (“Training extensions”)

Link: https://wiki.cordys.com/display/acorg/Training%20extensions

Access to these sites only requires registration.
This can be arranged instantly through any of the links above. Each will result in the login screen below:



Selecting “New User? Register here” will show the form below.

 
Complete the form and follow further instructions to register.

Once done… you are ready to “play”!
 
Self study environment

The self study environment (I’ll call it “sandbox”) is nothing but a single downloadable VM-ware image!
It is configured as a complete Cordys server the provides all main functionality.
Apart from allowing “students” to do all practical exercises in the tutorials, it even would allow you to do a complete project (for the 3 months license period at least)

Provided you have a VM Ware player (free downloadable at http://www.vmware.com/ ), setting it up simply requires the following steps:

1.       Download the zipped VM Ware environment (It is rather big: Zipped about 2Gb, unzipped about 6Gb)

2.       Unzip the VM environment

3.       Run the VM image

4.       Start a browser session (for the moment IE7 or IE8)

5.       Go to the startup URL (Specified in the Setup and User guide)

6.       Start using Cordys BOP4, provided a default Student1

(If still more info is required: The steps above are well explained in a “Setup and User guide”, that can be downloaded from the “self study environment” page)

This sandbox allows to manage users and provide them with the necessary roles to develop, test, deploy, execute and monitor almost any Cordys work product. The sandbox even allows to use an external SVN version control system to store and version all work products externally from the VM Environment.
The sandbox even provides an example MySQL database with content and web services.

The link to the Self Study Environment is: https://wiki.cordys.com/display/acorg/Cordys+BOP-4+Self+Study+Training+Environment, which invokes the page below.


Fundamentals tutorial

The fundaments tutorial teaches novice Cordys BOP4 users everything to know about the BOP4 environment.

Multiple tutorial “chapters” take the user sequentially through all necessary subjects, in order to make a start with Cordys BOP4.
Each chapter contains theoretical information (documents and presentations) and hands-on exercises to practice the learned skills. The exercises are very concise and even suitable for people with very limited technical skills.

Subjects that are covered are:

-          Overview and introduction to the Cordys environment

-          Managing users and setting up a new project

-          Developing business processes (BPMN models)

-          Developing and using services

-          Developing user interfaces

-          Developing workflows

The exercises of each module should be executed sequentially, because there are certain dependencies between them.
They will provide a starting developer with the basic skills to build and run simple BPM solutions.

Note that doing all tutorials will take between about 3 and 5 days to finish, depending on your experience in similar environments.

The link https://wiki.cordys.com/display/acorg/Cordys+Fundamentals+BOP-4 takes you to the page below. The order of the modules is Top-Down


Training extensions

A number of advanced BOP4 topics are offered in “Training Extensions”.

This concerns topics that elaborate certain topics in the fundamentals, but also subjects that have not been covered yet before (like Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) or Case Management).

In case of requiring more in-depth knowledge or considering certification these training extensions are a valuable source of information.

The link https://wiki.cordys.com/display/acorg/Training%20extensions will take you to the following page:


Conclusion

Cordys provides great means for organizations and users to gain knowledge about the BOP4 product from scratch at no (direct) cost.

Please bear in mind:
A computer based training may provide you a good starting point. Effective skills are mostly built up by actually applying them in a practical situation.
I would advise starting teams to involve an experienced developer/solution architect, for a number of reasons, like:

-          It provides a direct productivity gain

-          It helps to properly setting up the project and guidelines

-          It will (cross)-train your inexperienced team

-          It will solve “blocking issues” faster

-          You may profit of the network of the experienced developer

Good luck to all new Cordys BOP4 adopters.

Hope to meet you in a future project!