Liferay Devcon presentation on Workflow & Dynamic Forms

Dynamic forms processing with Liferay workflow

Overview and lessons learnt

Willem Vermeer

Worth IT Den Haag, The Netherlands

10 October 2013

Presenter overview

Willem Vermeer

Java developer Based in The Netherlands Working for Worth IT Back-end oriented Liferay enthusiast

Presentation overview

Kaleo Workflow overview + demo

Integration with Orbeon forms + demo

Kaleo Workflow

“allows a user to define any number of simple to complex business

processes/workflows, deploy them, and manage them through a portal interface. The processes have knowledge of users, groups and roles. You don’t have to write a single line of code to accomplish this: all

you have to do is create a single XML document.”

WWW.LIFERAY.COM WWW.FACEBOOK.COOM/LIFERAY @LIFERAY

Prerequisites

Install Kaleo from Marketplace (CE or EE)into your Liferay Installation


Terminology

A workflow

- is a directed graph of states, tasks, transitions, actions and notifications

- can be applied to Liferay Assets such as Web Content or even Custom Assets

- is executed by an asynchronous engine


Start and finish

A workflow

- starts in an initial state

- must finish at the end state

- can contain any number of tasks, including parallel tasks (fork-join)


Task assignation

A task can be assigned to

- a certain user

- a role

Important: only user with assigned task can transition it to the next task or state


Example start

submit

review

accepted

rejectstate

task

user

reviewerrole

transition accept

submit


Workflow Definition

Liferay EE has a graphical editor to create/modify workflows


Workflow Definition


pulled from marketplace

From Liferay Support:“Unfortunately we had to pull it from the Marketplace as many major issues were discovered with it.“


Workflow Definition


Liferay CE has XML

pulled from marketplace

From Liferay Support:“Unfortunately we had to pull it from the Marketplace as many major issues were discovered with it.“


Workflow definition part 1

<workflow-definitionxmlns="urn:liferay.com:liferay-workflow_6.1.0"xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"xsi:schemaLocation="urn:liferay.com:liferay-workflow_6.1.0

http://www.liferay.com/dtd/liferay-workflow-definition_6_1_0.xsd">

<name>DevCon Demo</name><description>Workflow example</description><version>1</version><state>

<name>created</name><initial>true</initial><transitions>

<transition><name>submit</name><target>submit</target>

</transition></transitions>

</state>


Workflow definition part 2<task>

<name>submit</name><actions>

<action><name>submit</name><script>

<![CDATA[Packages.com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowStatusManagerUtil.updateStatus(Packages.com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowConstants.toStatus("pending"), workflowContext); ]]>

</script><script-language>javascript</script-language><execution-type>onAssignment</execution-type>

</action></actions><assignments>

<user /></assignments><transitions>

<transition><name>submit</name><target>review</target>

</transition></transitions>

</task>

Workflow definition part 3<task>

<name>review</name><actions>

<notification><name>Review Notification</name><template>You have a new submission waiting

for your review in the workflow.</template><template-language>text</template-language><notification-type>email</notification-type><execution-type>onAssignment</execution-type>

</notification></actions><assignments>

<roles><role>

<role-type>regular</role-type><name>Application Reviewer</name>

</role></roles>

</assignments>

</task>


Workflow definition part 4<state>

<name>approved</name><actions>

<action><name>approve</name><script>

<![CDATA[Packages.com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowStatusManagerUtil.updateStatus(Packages.com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowConstants.toStatus("approved"), workflowContext);]]>

</script><script-language>javascript</script-language><execution-type>onEntry</execution-type>

</action></actions>

</state></workflow-definition>


Demo app

Extremely simplified version of customer case

CreateApplication portlet to apply for a grant

ListApplication portlet to display overview of applications

DEMO


How to apply a workflow to a custom asset

your portlet app

WorkflowHandler

workflow engine


Workflow handler declaration

In liferay-portlet.xml add the following to your portlet:

<portlet>..<workflow-handler>

demo.workflow.ApplicationWorkflowHandler</workflow-handler>..

</portlet>


Workflow handler

public abstract interface WorkflowHandler {

public String getClassName();

public abstract java.lang.Object updateStatus(int status, Map workflowContext) throws PortalException, SystemException;

// more...}


Workflow handler implementation

@Overridepublic Object updateStatus(int status, Map<String, Serializable> workflowContext)

throws PortalException, SystemException {

Object applicationId = workflowContext.get(WorkflowConstants.CONTEXT_ENTRY_CLASS_PK);

long appId = Long.parseLong(applicationId.toString());

Application application = ApplicationLocalServiceUtil.fetchApplication(appId);

application.setStatus(status); return ApplicationLocalServiceUtil.updateApplication(application);}


Workflow handler invocation

<action><name>submit</name><script>

<![CDATA[Packages.com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowStatusManagerUtil.updateStatus(Packages.com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowConstants.toStatus("pending"), workflowContext);

]]></script><script-language>javascript</script-language><execution-type>onAssignment</execution-type>

</action>


How to start the workflowServiceContext serviceContext =

ServiceContextFactory.getInstance(Application.class.getName(), request);

Map<String, Serializable> context = new HashMap<String, Serializable>();context.put(WorkflowConstants.CONTEXT_ENTRY_CLASS_NAME,

Application.class.getName());

context.put(WorkflowConstants.CONTEXT_ENTRY_CLASS_PK, Long.toString(app.getApplicationId()));

context.put(WorkflowConstants.CONTEXT_SERVICE_CONTEXT, serviceContext);

WorkflowInstanceManagerUtil.startWorkflowInstance(companyId,groupId,userId,workflowDefinitionName,workflowDefinitionVersion,phase,context);


How to move the workflow

WorkflowTaskManagerUtil.completeWorkflowTask(companyId,owningUserId,workflowTaskId,nextPhase, // "submit" or "reject" or .."comment",context

);


How to assign a task to a user

WorkflowTaskManagerUtil.assignWorkflowTaskToUser(companyId,userId, // ownerworkflowTaskId,userId, // assignee"comment", dueDate,context // can be an empty Map

);


How to re-assign a task to another user

long[] userIds = WorkflowTaskManagerUtil.getPooledActorsIds(companyId,workflowTaskId

);


Integration with Orbeon XForms

Orbeon Forms Builder & Forms Runner

Proxy portlet to execute the form runner

Combination with workflow


Orbeon Xforms Builder

Insert User Group Logo (please resize)


Integration with Orbeon - architecture

Insert User Group Logo (please resize)

application group page

proxy portlet

custom portlet

(drives workflow)javascrip

t


Integration with Orbeon - demo

DEMO


Things to like about Kaleo workflow

Nice, deep integration with Liferay (users, roles)

Control panel access to workflow tasks

Simplicity


Room for improvementExtensibility- limited to scripting in workflow definition

Flexibility- can't change definition once a workflow has started

Thread safety- workflow engine is thread UNsafe

Error recovery- What's wrong with my XML?


Questions?

@willemvermeer

For more information on Orbeon please visit orbeon.com

Liferay Devcon presentation on Workflow & Dynamic Forms

Technology

Transcript of Liferay Devcon presentation on Workflow & Dynamic Forms