Tutorial - How to Create a Business Process

• Overview
• Prerequisites
• Create ProcessEntryPoint
• Create PageGenerator
• Create EventHandler
• Insert action diagram code
• Generate and build business process
• Insert changes in template
• Deploy generated objects
• Make definitions in WebsydianExpress administration interface
• Test the function

Overview

This tutorial will show the steps necessary to make a simple business process.

The process accesses a product database and will return a list of the 5 best selling products for each group of product.

To keep the function fetching the data simple for this tutorial, the data are fetched from a file containing all of the relevant data.

A generic description of how to create a business process is available here.

Prerequisites

In order to complete the tutorial you must make sure that the following is in place:

Install WebsydianExpress instance

You can find guidelines on how to install WebsydianExpress here.

It is assumed that you install the Windows version of WebsydianExpress. If you use WebsydianExpress on another platform, then you must make the necessary adjustments to the guidelines in the deployment section of the tutorial.

Download tutorial local model

Start by downloading a local model containing the database and abstract functions.

Setup your model configuration

Once the local model is downloaded you should setup your development environment. You can find guidelines on how to do this here. Please note that in the step "Create Local Model" you should not create a new local model as you have downloaded one. However, you still have to set the model configuration as described in this section.

In addition to this you must also setup a database for the local model. Please consult the Plex help on how to do this.

Create ProcessEntryPoint

A ProcessEntryPoint function needs to be defined for each business process. This function will always be called as the very first step when activating a business process. This means you can use this as an initialization function for the process.

The implementation name of the ProcessEntryPoint function will be used to uniquely identify the process to WebsydianExpress.

Create PageGenerator

The business process is all about showing a list of products in a grid. A PageGenerator needs to be defined to be able to generate the HTML page.

The implementation name of the PageGenerator will also be used as the name of the HTML template used by the PageGenerator.

In the tutorial the PageGenerator used by the process is scoped under the ProcessEntryPoint. You do not have to do this - we just find it convenient to have all the functions used by a process scoped together.

Defining the PageGenerator as a GridPageForProcess specifies that the page generated will contain a grid.

A generic description of how to define a grid on a page can be found here.

To make the PageGenerator fetch the sales data, replace the abstract view and function for the PageGenerator.

Create EventHandler

As the user must be able to see the top 5 items for each item group, he needs to be able to change which group to show data for. To make such an action possible it is necessary to define an EventHandler for the page.

Insert action diagram code

The ProcessEntryPoint and the EventHandler must of course call the PageGenerator. This is done by inserting the calls in the action diagrams of the functions.

ItemSalesList (ProcessEntryPoint)

Post point "Call to first PageGenerator":

Call ItemSalesList.ShowList

// Map <Item Group ID.*Blank>

// Map <Sales Total.*Zero>

ItemSalesList.ShowList.ChangeGroup (EventHandler)

Post Point "0 call to build of document":

Call Function: ItemSalesList.ShowList

//Map WebInput<Item Group ID>

//Map <Sales Total.*Zero>

Generate and build business process

You must now generate and build the business process as well as the functions and database objects used.

Generate and build the following objects and their scoped objects as well:

• DataBase.Sales Statistics
• ItemSalesList

Run the DocumentTemplateGenerator function ItemSalesList.ShowList._DocumentTemplateGenerator. This will generate the HTML template used by the PageGenerator function ItemSalesList.ShowList. The location of the template was defined during setup of the local model.

Execute the function DataBase.Sales Statistics.Edit and insert some records in the database. These data will be used later by the business process.

Insert changes in template

As we only want to show the top 5 items, the following text is inserted in the template:

<!--/(ROWS-5)-->

You should insert this just before the first location of the "<!--/(Grid)-->" marker in the template.

This is one of the special replacement markers supported by WebsydianExpress. It specifies the number of rows to show in the grid.

You can read more about the special ROWS replacement marker here.

Deploy generated objects

Copy the following objects from the development environment to the WebsydianExpress environment.

• HTML templates: Copy to the basic site folder (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Websydian\WebsydianExpress for Windows\Application Service\html\demosite")
• Program objects: Copy from the Release folder to the PlaceObjectsHere folder; e.g. "C:\Program Files\Websydian\WebsydianExpress for Windows\Application Service\PlaceObjectsHere"

For more information on how to deploy a business process please read Move Process to Test Environment.

Make definitions in WebsydianExpress administration interface

To make it possible to test the functionality it is necessary to define the created process in the WebsydianExpress administration interface. Start the WebsydianExpress demo site and login as administrator on the demo site.

Menu Item "Site configuration->Site Settings"

Verify that the setting "Library for created events" is set to the path of the folder PlaceObjectsHere used in the previous section.

Menu item "Content loader->Business Processes"

Press "Insert". On the next page enter:

Name: Show sales list

Program name: TOPLIST

Description: Shows top 5 items in an item group

Keep the "Create default presentation" check box checked.

Press Insert.

You can find further information about maintaining content loaders here.

Menu item "Site structure->Site Structure"

Expand the element "Main Frameset".

Select the menu "MENU Menu Loader", which is a direct child of the element "Main Frameset". Press "Add".

On the page shown select "Business Process" and "Create new site element".

Press "Next".

On the page enter "toplist" in the search field and press find.

Select the presentation "Show sales list" in the grid by pressing "Select".

On the next page press "Finish".

On the page shown, enter:

Menu item text: Top Item

Alignment: Left

Sequence: 9000

Display in frame: MAIN

Press "Next".

On the page shown select the roles User and Administrator for the created business process.

Press "Finish".

You can find more information about inserting a business process here.

Test the function

Return to the start page for the site (or reenter the start URL for the site).

The Menu point "Top Items" should now be shown in the left part of the menu.

Press this menu point.

Implement dropdown box

After testing the function, you can continue to an extension of the tutorial, showing how to change the input field to a drop down box. The extension can be found here.