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
workflows
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
workflows
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-definition
xmlns="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>

<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>

<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>
</notification>
</actions>
<assignments>
<roles>
<role>
<role-type>regular</role-type>
<name>Application Reviewer</name>
</role>
</roles>
</assignments>

</task>

<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>
<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
@Override
public 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>
</action>

How to start the workflow
ServiceContext 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, // owner
workflowTaskId,
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)
javascript

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 improvement
Extensibility
- 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

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