Is it possible to integrate Sitecore with external workflow engine (K2, Skelta), and if so, how to connect external workflow with Sitecore content item, and do i need to implement new interface in Sitecore (like workbox).
The reason why i need this, because current Sitecore workflow does not have all features that other workflow engines have, like escalating workflow items or parallel approval steps.
There are at least two ways. The most common way is to use Sitecore workflow actions to hand items off to the external workflow system. Another way is to implement the IWorkflowProvider and possibly related interfaces to abstract the external workflow engine completely. I personally have never tried either approach, so I can't provide any detail.
According to the sitecore website they list open architecture as a benefit. They even go so far as to say.
"Integrate with third-party systems: Sitecore CMS provides a full data integration and
abstraction layer that allows you to connect to any database, web service or other external systems"
So theoretically it is possible. (Full disclosure, I do work for K2) I will ask around to see if anyone internally has done this before.
Anyone else out there done anything similar?
Related
I am trying to explore Apache NiFi. So far haven't seen any ways to version control flows.
Is there a way to version control flows when multiple users are trying to develop in the same instance?
What about code merge from multiple users?
Any help in these regards will help me to continue my exploration.
In addition to James's great answer I'll also point out that this approach to flow management has leveraged external version control systems and put the task on the user to perform. What I mean is that users (or automated processes) could initiate the production of a template and then store that template into a VCS. This has worked well but it is also insufficient. The other direction is also important where given a versioned flow one would like that to be automatically reflected on another cluster/system/environment. Think of the software development lifecycle one might go through when building flows in a development environment and proving/vetting into and through production. Or think of a production case where behavior is not as expected. While NiFi offers a really powerful interactive command and control model sometimes people want to be able to test new approaches and theories in another environment. As a result, we're working now on a really awesome capability.
Come join the conversation. We'd like to hear your thoughts.
Thanks
NiFi Templates are a great format for configuration management of a NiFi flow. You can define templates for everything from small example snippets up to large nested process group structures, essentially your entire flow. Templates will include processors, queues, and controller services, but will not contain sensitive values like passwords. Templates are stored as XML files friendly to source control (since NiFi v1.0).
Templates provide a way for individual developers to separately build parts of a flow, then merge the parts together in a single NiFi. If you match templates with process groups, swapping out the old one with the new one can be fairly easy and intuitive.
The answer to this question is YES, you can use NiFi Registry to have version control.
Below you can see a how it looks like.
The project page is:
https://nifi.apache.org/registry.html
I use Nuxeo for content management purposes on a project.
I know I'll also need to support "workflow" scenarios, which I currently know very little about.
For example: I'll need to support a workflow scenario for approving a release of a software component.
Such an approval may be composed of several different stages, and in every stage I may need to trigger some kind of an automatic interaction with certain users of the system.
What may be considered some good/valid considerations for not "settling for" the workflow engine provided by Nuxeo, and using a dedicated engine such as Activiti or jBPM instead?
I know the question is very (perhaps too) broad, but still:
What could be some points to consider before I choose one over the other?
Are there other tools I should consider?
Yes, your question IS too broad. every workflow tool has its own cons and pros. why don't you list down all of your needs then compare each of the tools. mainly: Alfresco Activiti, Camunda, jBPM or Nuxeo
I have a question about WWF, I'm working on a webbased ERP project which is a modular application ofcourse.
I'm looking for a way to create an engine for wokflows in the framwrok so modules can rely on it and based on this engine create their workflows.As I see there should be 3 kind of workflows (Human for confirmation of info among the organization, Business for handling business flows such as calculating personnel income based on the different factors and UI workflow for handling chain of usercontrols based on a cartable (dashboard) )
I need some help on handling this and if there is any problem in my insight I wonder to be informed.
This is extremely broad and without more context hard to answer.
WorkFlow can be used in conjunction with e.g. SharePoint to take care of the Human part of a workflow such as creating a document or marking it as OK.
WF can be deployed as a service and supports the interaction with other (web)services to support modularity.
I'm starting work on a small web based request system which needs to implement a two-step approval process (C# mainly, most likely MVC3).
I have come up with a simple workflow diagram and can easily come up with code to move from step to step. However, I'm having trouble coming up with a way to persist workflow related "tasks" or "steps" in the database.
For a request, an admin would approve/deny it when it comes in, then it's goes into "working" state. At compeletion, user is requested to approve/deny "QA" step.
Can anyone provide some directions on this?
I don't want to use Windows Workflow Foundation, since I don't have time to learn yet another new framework. And Google is not being too helpful, any mention of the word "workflow" keeps bringing results for WF.
Learn WF.
Why? All you're doing by inventing your own new framework is forcing the next people to maintain your code (or those who work with you) to "learn yet another new framework," as you so put it. Do you want to write all that new documentation or do you just want to point someone to MSDN?
WF4 is actually pretty easy to learn, way better than WF3. Before you throw away the idea completely, at least read this:
A Developer's Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in .NET 4
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee342461.aspx
If you're looking at a web based system, you may use Windows Server AppFabric to provide the persistence and monitoring layer and a WCF workflow service to host the workflow. The time you spend learning the basics of this will be far less than the time you spend inventing your own system. I guarantee it. You can install AppFabric via the Web Platform Installer tool along with SQLEXpress to persist.
There is a pretty strong need for us to design some workflows around various processes. The problem is none of us actually know any workflow technology yet, and finding good data to compare the available options has been tedious and not entirely fruitful.
So I figured I'd ask you guys.
The main technologies we are looking at are Windows Workflow Foundation and eDocs Workflow. What other options are there? Sharepoint 2007 has workflow functionality too, right? Is that just based on WF?
What are the pros and cons of the various technologies? How do they compare?
EDIT: Also, one feature the administrative types like with eDocs Workflow is that it provides a method for them to edit it themselves. I believe Sharepoint '07 does as well. Is there some other way to allow that with a straight WWF implementation?
Sharepoint and WF more like complementary technologies, designed as two different workflow authoring tools in the same ecosystem. There's a Sharepoint workflow designer, and a WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) workflow designer.
The Sharepoint designer is meant to be an Office-like workflow editing experience, easier to get started with, geared for non-technical types, and generates all the web forms automatically.
The 'WF' workflow designer on the other hand is actually a component of Visual Studio (by default - as Bernie says you can rehost it), and designed to allow programmers to be able to fully customize workflow, and integrate it with any other code/systems desired. Building and deploying sharepoint sites this way is still possible, through the use of 'Sharepoint Activities', but more complex.
If you take the former route, you can hopefully let the administrative types do their own basic customizations (up to the limits of that environment) without causing total chaos.
It is possible to 'rehost' the WF designer (the one from Visual Studio) in your own application, so that users can author workflows. There are a number of code examples on the web, the most important one from MS itself: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480213.aspx).
At some point, when evaluating WF, I implemented a demo application that did this and added some features and found that although it works, not everybody can understand and use the more difficult activities (like the policy activity) that require understanding of how the rules engine works.