Category: workflows

Copy This To That

Recently I saw a post in OT Forum that caught my eye https://forums.opentext.com/forums/discussion/comment/935976#Comment_935976 What prompted me to write this is because the OT experts also advised using some other mechanisms (XML WF Extensions and use of WR). Now, normally I like to code as well as any other user in Livelink a.k.a Content Server so why this post is because I remember when OT announced the Item Handler and Item Reference(yes they are different) several years ago I believe when Tammy Jakubowski(now GCI) was the WF Product Manager at OpenText.It was downright confusing but did it work in complicated situation boy it did. So I also asked the same questions why would you need WF Attributes and Form attributes in the workflow because they both do the same thing. But this user kept telling me that Business Workspaces apparently has a WF Step that creates BWS’s and it would only work with WF Attributes and they didn’t want their users to see the WF Interface





I replied with a simple OOB implementation where I used a simple throwaway hardcoded documents inside my WF Attachments map and using two Item Handlers Copied what a user entered in a Form Value to a Category to the throwaway Object and using a second step copied that Category Values onto a WF Attribute.

I later explained to the user in a series of simple screencaps how one would do this as that user needed hand-holding and I find the OT Online Documentation horrendously confusing 🙂 https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/cs.dll?func=ll&objId=77363139&objAction=browse

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General Help Series 4- Workflow Maps/Instances

Livelink Workflows for the impatient

Livelink comes up with a extremely powerful Workflow Engine .At the minimum if you have only installed Livelink OOB you get a decent workflow features.This involves a “business user” to design a logical map that may involve “players” or “roles”.The only criterion is the process needs to be repeatable or it can be plotted in visio or such like.Note Livelink WF came before the wf consortium came up with open standards but it will have almost everything one sees in the standard.

Some key terms-

  1. A WF Map.This is a dtree object identified by a dataid
  2. WF Manager-By default the person who created the original map.Best practices dictate that you assign a proper livelink group as the ‘Master Manager‘.Not to be confused as the livelink team’s manager or a organizational manager.In theory this manager can re-assign steps and repaint the map.One of the few places where the sysadmin profile or the ‘admin’ user won’t cut it so due diligence thinking that at some point a higher up user may be asked to assist.Please do not run maps with <Initiator /> as the Master Manager.It is quite possible these users know only to click and when something breaks nobody can intervene.You can make them do only the “See Details” which is more than enough in many cases.
  3. WF Instance- The process logic that is set in motion when a WF Map is set in motion a.k.a initiated .This is easily identifiable by a clickable link in the WF managers assignments and it will show in GREEN the step and useful info.
  4. Steps-The series of steps that can be assigned to processes and users.This is what apparently the business user can be trained to paint..there are a myriad of steps that OT puts on the palette.
  5. Role Based or Map Based-If you create a map OOB then livelink gives you a map where the forward steps can be done by business programming,like if WF attribute is green then my user is this group.If you change the map to “ROLE” based before initiation the Initiator will have to fill all the people in the workflow.People who use the Transmittals product of livelink can see this in action very clearly.
  6. Attachments Volume- By default the attachments package is permissioned Full Control to “Public Access” very bad idea as when a casual user does search he will see unwanted or secretive results..Always put a good permission bit there.If you do not give participants Add Items up to Delete in that volume you will get crude messages from livelink . Note that the Truth Table implementation is observed by livelink on any kind of Object Creation so to get around problems in workflow OT assigns default full control to PA. Just observe what OT gives and change that to a good group and add all the people in the workflow to that group.
  7. WF Attributes– Helper attributes modelled after category metadata .It allows the business user to route the map.
  8. Forms-Optional Package see NEXT post.
  9. Loop Back– Be extremely careful about this as you can create a infinite wf instance.
  10. Item Reference– You can point to existing object subtypes in livelink like folders /documents etc so in conjunction with Item Handlers you can perform “auto magic”

It is quite possible that a good business user or a livelink user can be trained over a day to understand the process flow/swim lanes.I usually design my maps on a paper.I have a cheat sheet of sorts I maintain and many of the things in this article is based on that. Always check “Verify Map Definition” to understand any problems this may have.

The Item Handler is a predictive step modeled by some placeholder logic( Design Book 3) although which it appear useful it could look frustrating as very little process automation can be done just by it.The workarounds or “auto magic”  is usually a human at a prior step.If you use it with XML WF Extensions a lot of “auto magic” can be done with it.

The “XML WF EXtensions”  is a optional module that   uses the capability of livelink objects to have a XML representation(everybody probably has heard of XML Export/XML Import)

the XML WF Ext uses XML representations of livelink objects and manipulation of those objects by a SAX(or DOM not sure I know LL has both in it ) parser. Usually people get bitten by load balancers and file system permissions.

Like wise -XML Work Flow Interchange.Can send /call Web Services of other systems.

ESign – A specialized workflow that can do electronic signatures prevalent in 21 CFR11 operations.

Perfectly suited for livelink organizations who will not invest in Oscript coding /scared by OT sales/marketing in not writing Oscript understanding of this remarkable product.It was very expensive when I started livelink programming so it is a personal bias as well since I like to look at the map and many times I can get a 1-1 representation to the process.

OT Workflow Design 1 and Design 2 is a must read if you are doing anything with workflows.it also has decent interface methods for web services  as well

Oscript what is it what and would I use it?

Oscript is  a 4GL that is the basis of the application that the OpenText company adopted when they chose to market Livelink the Document Management System.It is safe to say that anything  the Livelink product lacks and  is a valid requirement can be coded in this language.The power of the the Oscript language takes root in the philosophy that was prevalent in the 60’s . Oscript is a superior offering to traditional OOP languages such as Java or C++ that is what Pundits say.

To a trained Oscripter one is able to understand how livelink code is received as well as change it.Now change to any COTS product comes at a cost.That is where the strategy as well as overall grasp in the product comes into mind.If the organization has decided for itself that it will spend the big bucks on livelink, one approach is to identify the ways to use it more.Where the organization is going to make mistakes is when it sees the cost of the “customization”.Many decision makers wrongly decide to go after fly by night programmers/vendors to be totally left in the fray.OT has a professional vested interest to sell customers more code and services so I have been in decisions where sales and marketing  will say do not customize livelink, but that is only half truth in them.If you buy these OT customizations, they are almost certain to be written in Oscript .In many cases it would have been written by senior Oscripters with thought on maintenance aspects  and upgrade ability as well.The same kind of service can be bought by other Oscript houses,in many cases these are extremely talented ex OT ‘ers. Many of the Professional Services modules sometimes outgrows the intents and becomes a marketable module as well.I have no knowledge and am just speculating on that.Once you have identified and  decided to use livelink the best avenue is to hire or ask services of reputed vendors.Modules that contained Oscript code that I used to code in 1999 (first time was on a livelink 8 system) livelink 9.1 version I can almost compile in the modern 10.5 version.My entire career was  and is fruitful because I tried to interact/collaborate and share with the OT team in the KB as well as smaller websites like Greg Griffiths.I was also able to mentor myself amongst very die hard oscripters that I knew from work and just by tracing code to find bugs that needed closure before OT could provide fixes.The knowledge of OT code also allows me to become a better application architect,administrator and integrator.

If the organization is strong in Java and .Net skills then note that the user interface at this time cannot be changed using those languages,however you may use exposed API’s to make functioning applications that use Livelink as the data store

Typical things organizations can and should do.

  1. Create implementations of Nodes just like Folder or Document if there is a need for it to be there.Just because OT shows you a “Addressbook” or “Contacts” module not every livelink installation in the world needs new subtypes.It is there if you want to use it ,if there is a complex business requirement that involves a “document” like implementation or a “folder” like implementation.Do search in the KB for such terms as “invasive customizations”, overrides,orphans,subclasses, customizationsRT, weblingo customization.
  2. Add Commands in the Nodes these are basically very easy to do in a short order.These two are taught very nicely in class as well.
  3. Put a lot of functioning logic into workflows also heard as event scripting.
  4. Write code so that livelink can interact with other systemslike using the POJO object.
  5. Write agents,distributed agents,expose to columns and facets api something that OT does not give you OOB.
  6. Extending SOAP and REST can only be done using Oscript.If you are a shop who has a need to program a integration using java or C# and you see a “GAP” in existing offering it is rather easy for a Oscripter to extend that.

Opentext Programmers have black boxed thing so that many things acts as internal API’s.For e.g we are able to do work without understanding how the “Node” itself is created in livelink. Other examples are the way Oscript can talk to the search system.

Not many people know that livelink uses a api to search.

Out of the world Oscript Offerings.

Christopher Meyer a Long OT veteran his website . It is un believable stuff that I have seen.

Patrick Vitali the maker of AnswerModules

IDE’s one can use

CSIDE a eclipse jar file for versions CS10.5

Livelink Builder CS10 and Versions prior.

SOAPUI one could use some lather

****************************************** ***START UPDATE 10/3/2016*****************

LAPI and its client installer has become very hard to find. Moreover clients written in LAPI  in say Java/.NET will only work if your Livelink a.k.a Content Server is of version less than CS16.Readers who are new to LL programming is encouraged to read this to the approach and not to the exact lines of the code.What I mean is when you used to program in LAPI you were basically passing parameters to discrete calls by modelling it based on the webgui of livelink .SOAP based webservices called CWS is also the same,so if you do not try to do the task in the webgui and try to understand the business rules you will almost have no success in CWS too. OT is notorious for not putting fully functioning use cases and a walk through,so whenever possible I write code assuming the user has not worked in Livelink for X number of years and try to educate you all. Livelink,Content Server,Enterprise Server all of this has been Livelink’s marketing brand name changes over the years.CS i sused in many of the integrations like AGA, XECM, RMLINK  and you know you are programming against livelink if you see a link that looks like this  http(s)://somefriendlyURL/livelink.exe|cs.exe|llisapi.dll|cs.dll|livelink.In many places SAP/ SP /Exchange will be configured to talk to Archive Server and then they will use Livelink to read into archive server and turn that into LL objects for better presentment/RM and other aspects. The AGA product is moving away from LAPI(not sure totally or not) to REST API in LL.

**********************************************END UPDATE****************************

 

In many instances I have been dumb founded by many things people get to do with livelink totally unheard of.Since the world has gone mobile and livelink’s own mobile solutions involving REST API are somehow limited people use creative ways to get around that.Many times they get stuck because OT examples once in C# and now days in java as well don’t give them complete working ,hand holding examples using the world’s most used SOAP generator using SOAP UI

Why it is so I don’t know but it could perhaps be drain on OT resources, to make money for OT ECO system consultants and OT professional services but in many cases a frustrated developer is not what OT wants. But wait a minute look at the support job that Web Reports / Active View offers.You post a thing and in two hrs you have answers even though some people not even doing their homework misuses.But what it has made is basically it has geared any new oncoming development to be done in its framework.  Successful software is only possible if there is a good educated programmers complementing the product.Enough said I use SOAPUI to test if the WSDL’s I deployed in an organizations web server works or not meaning see the WSDL on the browser is not enough you need to get a authentication token and do something in livelink to know if everything is working or not.So I use it to do small things and not any involved things.Some SAP/OT consultants have shown me a better SOAP tool that they use internally but I have forgotten its name.

Why this post?

People when they are in a bind do ask me or if I see something and  I have time I experiment.

Here’s an actual email thread that I am publishing so if some other poor soul is in the weeds it may sometime help that person.The email also contains some very simple workflow info which I feel most CWS programmers lack as they have not played really with livelink.Without further ado here it is names has been masked for ovbious reasons but everything else unedited.

 

 

Email qn to me

Hello Mr. Appu, 

Looking for a little help. I was searching on the web for an issue with workflowservices for CS10.

 

I have an issue updating the formdata value using the UpdateWorkitemData using SOAP UI. It gives me the error “Form not Found”.  Although I have the code working in Java, fine.

 

Please let me know if you faced such similar issues. OT support wasn’t helpful either.

 

My code below

 

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/” xmlns:urn=”urn:api.ecm.opentext.com” xmlns:urn1=”urn:WorkflowService.service.livelink.opentext.com” xmlns:urn2=”urn:Core.service.livelink.opentext.com“>

 

   <soapenv:Header>  

 REMOVED FOR CLARITY

</soapenv:Envelope>

 

Regards,

 

My Reply

Do you have access to the KB ,if so see this post of how I helped a person with a SoapUI call
https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/cs.dll?func=ll&objId=35766457&objAction=viewincontainer&ShowReplyEntry=35843158#forum_topic_35843158if not have a look at the response I posted
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1741405In any case I don’t do anything with SoapUI other than to test if the WSDL works and I can get authentication.

If you are positive the java code gets you what you want observe the SOAP packet and reverse engineer it for SOAPUI

SOAPUI does not support polymorphism that is the geek speak on this although I don’t really know what that all means.

OT SAP people use another SOAP generator but I have forgotten its name. I saw it about 4 yrs back as part of their archive server offering which they said is superior to SOAPUI.

 

Now in case you don’t really know about WF /forms etc what I advise people is this

  1. Only the “Workflow Manager” user/group people can update things. You can find that by painting the map in the GUI and looking at who is in its “Management” group or simply see if you can click on status of the map and its shows you the executing things.
  2. At the minimum the workflow should contain a template of the form you can see that also by looking at the workflow status object

 

If you are sure the form object is there and you can update it within the GUI then CWS code should work so long as it is written according to what the WSDL expects You may be able to get a little more detail if you put debug=2,wantlapilogs=true, wantlogs=true in that livelink server which receives the request

Always do the easiest first look at the workflow status object with the GUI.WF is one of the only things in livelink that as “SA” user like ‘Admin’ cannot see. only people in WF Mangers can see its internals.

 

Good luck.

 

 

Hi Reply Thanking me not many return any such thing so I was very happy.

Hi , 

Thanks a lot for your tip. I debugged the java code thru fiddler and found the XML  structure to be updated. I’m actually working with the SAP mobility project (outsourced to <name withdrawn>). They couldn’t use the  java or C# codes and needed REST API, which unfortunately is not available for workflow services.

 

Once again a humble thanks for your timely help.

 

 

Regards,

 

<name withdrawn>

 

 

 

 

 

 

Workflow Service Example to get a Attachment ID

****************************************** ***START UPDATE 10/3/2016*****************

LAPI and its client installer has become very hard to find. Moreover clients written in LAPI  in say Java/.NET will only work if your Livelink a.k.a Content Server is of version less than CS16.Readers who are new to LL programming is encouraged to read this to the approach and not to the exact lines of the code.What I mean is when you used to program in LAPI you were basically passing parameters to discrete calls by modelling it based on the webgui of livelink .SOAP based webservices called CWS is also the same,so if you do not try to do the task in the webgui and try to understand the business rules you will almost have no success in CWS too. OT is notorious for not putting fully functioning use cases and a walk through,so whenever possible I write code assuming the user has not worked in Livelink for X number of years and try to educate you all. Livelink,Content Server,Enterprise Server all of this has been Livelink’s marketing brand name changes over the years.CS i sused in many of the integrations like AGA, XECM, RMLINK  and you know you are programming against livelink if you see a link that looks like this  http(s)://somefriendlyURL/livelink.exe|cs.exe|llisapi.dll|cs.dll|livelink.In many places SAP/ SP /Exchange will be configured to talk to Archive Server and then they will use Livelink to read into archive server and turn that into LL objects for better presentment/RM and other aspects. The AGA product is moving away from LAPI(not sure totally or not) to REST API in LL.

**********************************************END UPDATE****************************

 

 

 

A fellow poster in KB is asking for help with Workflow Service examples. KB

Again my guess is the programmer does not no enough about how livelink handles workflow data structures so hopefully my article does some help. A frustrated developer in this case because there ain’t official samples from OpenText will start to trash the product which I hate to be happening. OT is busy with Core and Appworks(nothing was said about this at conference so is it already dead?) it seems and to this day I cannot understand why OT responses to WebReports is such a high pleasurable experience whereas everything else is basically a lukewarm thing.

I needed to brush my new java skills so I downloaded java samples from KB and started looking at it. It looks to me there is a lot of setup one does with java in C# alsl one does is type a little bit of code….Anyway the poster was using System.out so I am guessing he was a java programmer.There might be several better ways to do it but what I did was convert my old C# code to do that

which was here https://communities.opentext.com/communities/cs.dll?func=ll&objId=10153785&objAction=download&viewType=1.The site is free to the public.

 

  1. Workflows are Churned by a map created in livelink See Pic of the new 10.5 Map wf
  2. When you Click Initiate a WF Record is inserted with a pair of dataids called WorkID, SubWorkID in most simple workflows they are the same when you or livelink creates subworkflows they differ.
  3. By programming all you are doing is making sure you can get to the running instance and look at its internals
  4. It never seldom one changes the logic of map with CWS or LAPI programming.
  5. The livelink workflow carries several packages of the workflow,when you say you want Attachments you get a Container much like a folder to put documents,if you say Attributes you get that,if you put a Form template you get that and so on and so forthwf
  6. The above map is reproduced faithfully in a table that is how livelink knows the evaluate conditions etc, if you change the real master map then only instances churned form that will be affected not earlier ones
  7. Attributes and Forms are basically going to borrow/rely heavily on categories and attributes code
  8. The code for finding the Attachments in a Workflow Instance and downloading it.
  9. My code shows how to get one item in the WF Data Structure a.k.a Container ID .You will need to write recursive algorithms if there were folders within that particular id.

Amazing Form Product (Mind Blowing)

Anybody who has worked with traditional HTML forms/PDF Forms know how cumbersome its making is in livelink. That is because the form template is rigorously tied to livelink code .The WF /Form developer sits in front of livelink many time not knowing it is submitting to a livelink RH(all those hiddens you should not touch).The submitted POST data is parsed by livelink code to do all the crazy things you want or your manager wants you to deliver to a customer requirement. There is a frantic look for help in this and after perusing the KB for a lot of stuff one finds something and basically in about a week’s time one is able to write something that works. Then comes the big questions like it all looks very kind of unaesthetic. So lo and behold some kind of WYSIWYG editor is employed and lots of colors aesthetics applies and then TONS of java script errors on views….The smart cookies will figure out the JS errors and proceed but all done it is a good effort to do anything with it. In fact most of the Best Practices you will find about editing form templates/forms/views were even taken verbatim from old discussions are findings I posted when I was developing forms etc for my wf /form project years and years ago and they still hold good. The world has gone to WYSIWYG and nobody hires programmers for doing html/JS etc .While OT has their own version of WYSIWYG editor kind of forms (eForms) or something like that it is also not very that easy or intuitive .At least for me when I tried it several years ago so take that with a pinch of salt.

Now compare that to Patrick Vitali’s Product. It is an amazing, jaw dropping revelation to how one uses livelink and its forms capability .I do not work for him nor do I get remunerated for this but a good friend. I also make it a point to reward good things without expecting anything in return. Mind Blowing that is the real word that comes.

http://www.answermodules.com/30-minutes-application/

 

I hope upcoming livelink wf /forms projects get a taste of this product soonJ

 

Transporting Objects with Livelink

Update:10/22/2014

Me and my colleagues recently used this framework for transporting a custom subtype that we designed.We were helped by a kind OT developer All in all it saved our administration team from running XMLEXPORTS and XMLIMPORTS but the key factor is that needs to work for the transport code to work.

Update ends…

Recently OT announced a “Transport” mechanism. Users working in SAP etc are familiar with such a mechanism as changes to a baseline system are marked as configuration changes and ported to other systems.While I am oversimplifying this in a SAP deployment since so many code modules have to be configured it is impossible for an admin to remember what all has to be changed hence they decided at least 20 yrs back an enterprise program needs a transporting strategy as well.

Now lets look at how livelink gets deployed in an org. Mostly Livelink is deployed to address a document management pain/problem.Some consultants or a admin/developer who gets trained in livelink or somebody who has some documentation starts to install/configure this.assuming the person(s) have some common sense and tickets later it is working.Actually the first time install guide is very nicely written and it is mostly a “next” “next” kind of install.

Having configured it the person/persons start modelling the solution.It may involve setting up folders,categories for collecting metadata,classifications for alternative taxonomies,RM classifications ,Permissions(ACL) etc. OT and a lot of ecosystem partners take the money to sometimes set it up.You can make it complicated or simple.

Ok now that it is past the POC phase the next phase is the perhaps a TEST a more formalized place.Now comes the first shock how do I not necessarily duplicate all the work I did on a lower system.Fortunately while there was no advanced GUI or “Transport Bench” mechanism many of these building blocks can easily be transferred by XML IN/OUT operations.Smarter modules such as Classifications/RM anticipated the need for this so they did make their own transport mechanism well ahead of OT. But almost everything one could accomplish in a poor man’s methods

Now in controlled industries like Pharma etc this manual stuff was sheer heresy so companies like Global Cents made excellent products

So why the Transport now. My theory is the entry of integrations between SAP and Livelink.In fact the web services also was something my thought SAP forced OT’s hands.Many SAP customers are now getting a facelift with livelink doing a lot of backend services,pretty gui’s etc.

Here’s an interesting fictitious exchange between different players in a Integration meeting this is circa 2010,2011

SAP Basis Admin-Here we got the xECM thingy and archive server thingy going with OpenText (Notice OT in that because there is no product called that),I sthere anything else you guys need and can I close the client.

OT Consultant- Oh sure but on the next client you have to give me high access to edit the connections,change a few GUID’s(dataids) etc.

SAP Basis Admin-What the …..That means you have to do all this again

OT Consultant-Not everything just a few tweaks and pointing to the livelink admin..Hey Kishore where are we  on the next OT system. Have the ELIB items(categories and folder looking things) coming along

Livelink Admin-I did that according to documentation.

OT Consultant- How about the dataids did you run the queries I gave you for the re-mapping

Livelink Admin-Yeah everything is there

SAP Basis Admin-All the while thinking that what are these guys talking about re-configure every system.I have about 20 different clients I have to maintain.

OT Consultant-Just to prop up the SAP guy,well you know our guys in Germany are coming up with a Transport mechanism just like yours…

Well finally after a lot of back and forths the project is a success

If it is just a DMS project a lot of us have no problem using the old methods.

I am pretty sure the transport mechanism  is a GUI version of  XML Export/XMl Import.

The reason why I wrote this is recently a friend asked if he would be lucky in a project that would not have Object Importer(OI)/Object Exporter(OE) and its RM variations.

I told him this

OI/OE can be leased from OT for a price .They used to entertain that.

With XMLEXPORT/XMLIMPORT here are a few things you would run into.

  1. XMLEXPORT is almost available universally but the reverse is not true universally.

. So if one exported PhysObjects the corresponding import will fail.

  1. XMLEXPORT will choke on big documents and the number of nodes because of DOM parser limitations. In OE they bundle the file separately so they can get more throughput even though the code invokes a DOM parser there as well.
  2. XMLEXPORT/XMLIMPORT is based on source dataids which is not going to match targets. So if you find the xml exported file and change the category id’s to match the target it will work.
  3. XMLEXPORT/XMLIMPORT does not understand the hierarchy. For e.g OI will create nodes as it wants enterprise:folder1:::::::::;;;folder99. In XMLEXPORT import you would have to export and follow the reverse process. So if a child object is nested way into a path OI will handle it XML import you will have to handle it
  4. Most people will use XMLEXPORT/XMLIMPORT with lapi code so they can manage a lot of things with code in java or a .net lang

Now that GUIDS are part of 10 and 10.5 I do not know how that affects anything

OI/OE is kind of a framework .So with that I was able to transport compound email,email folder and email in a project with relatively less coding.

Readers-Please tell me if the Tranport Bench from OT is good and easy to use and it resolves conflicts et al and I will delete my post.

Event Scripts Debugging

 

I LOST ALL CONTENT WHICH WAS STORED IN COMMUNITIES.OPENTEXT.COM.IF YOU ARE A STARTER READING THIS AND WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE ORIGINAL CONTENT DEPENDING ON TIME I HAVE I CAN SEND YOU SNIPPETS.LEAVE A COMMENT TO SUCH EFFECT.

Getting Old.One of the most productive ways one uses Oscript is to create Event scripts in livelink workflow.

Workflows in livelink are perhaps the most easy ways to impress your clients and a lot of partners and ecosystems are built on top of that.Event scripting is taught or learned by one who has been introduced in livelink.But in a nut shell if you know how to paint a livelink workflow and thought of somethings like,how I wish OT gave me code to do this small thing which I am trying to do in a “kludge”. You may have noticed the “kludge” with how one uses XML WF Extensions ,to get to a document in the attachments area and do something with it.So a XML WFExt map looks very weird there will be a Export step,modify step for anything/ everything you want with it kind of very silly when you look at at the map.Fortunately when I was learning this XMLWfExt was high priced so we did not get to use it,hence we had to do it via event scripting. Once you get hooked into it man are you gonna love it. WR getting to attachments is also another inefficient way to do your stuff but the standard by line is oscript can break your investment.But when anybody wants anything done they would go to OT or Vendors who would you guessed it use Oscript to provide the magic.There is nothing more untruthful than this . Oscript when learned and done the correct way will survive years.To basically make a point I am going to attempt to see if a eventscript I wrote on 9.1 Sp3(circa 2003) can be made to work in 9.7.1(2013).I will even try to make it work in CS10 ,but then I will have to spin up a 2008 VM and so on.

Task At Hand:WF is initiated with a custom title made up of attributes, strings etc. The WF has four forms loaded into them and the template has a label and a field called TITLE  My job is to take the title and replace it on the form fields. Seems pretty  easy to do.

See My Map-10-24-2013 4-26-10 PM

My template looks like this and I tried not to write code it does not work when initiating the workflow

2

Ok so as most of developers do I put a break in that script with just a echo statement to start doing my work so that I can see the variables etc. so as most new people will face I get this

3

and more importantly the debugger my task info is an ERROR.Without which I cannot proceed.I say this after 10 years because now I know how to do this.I did not at that time and so many of you will also go thru this.

4

So what do you do.After pondering for a while I resignedly said let me put it in another step and tell the user that it is a livelink limitation you will get an extra step in your workflow so click it to run the event script

so here’s my experience when I put the event script on the next step

5

Now we still have a error but that is actually joyous because we can now start debugging

6

But look at the TaskInfo variable now it has what we are looking for and trying to debug all the rest of the script

7

I managed to figure out the rest with echos etc and finished the script

Now HERES WHAT THE UNBELIEVABLE PART WAS .I JUST EXPERIMENTED PUTTING IT BACK TO HOW I WANTED , TO THE START PLACE AND IT WORKED

Since the project was a go I was very overjoyed.Later as I started reading articles by Jeff Lang,a great guy,who incidentally wrote livelink workflow he kind of explained the C++ firing and so on.We are friends and he has helped me and many other people when we got into a bind.I loved a post where he kind of admonished the developers who wrote XMLWFEXT….:(

See his post in 2007 I wish I had asked him in 2003 or learned it the proper way 🙂

In continuation here’s what you will definitely succeed start small,take baby steps and try some of these best practices

  1. Event scripts can be debugged only if the work is committed in the database,means it has to initiate.What I mean is basically in WWORK the row is available.what looks as a “chicken & egg” situation may only be in development and really not in the real wf operation as I found by trial and error.Nowadays there is the IH step which you can put and assign it as a scheduled time.At the time I was doing this I did not have the liberty of such a step.
  2. Do not chain event scripts into the start step,milestone that kind it makes debugging difficult.Start to a milestone these are auto done steps.Milestones later in the map should not have problems.
  3. Do not have many things that a IH will do.Break it into manageable pieces.You will be grateful you did.

See where i posted this 

A really bad WF map made up of XMLWFEXT,WR,eSIGN etc the reason why the “kludge” is arrived is because of the designer not resorting to event script programming.Nor is the logic very sound.Stay away form those kinds.A business user should understand the wf map that is what the process is designed to support.Whenever I design a map I give the business user a standard swim lane diagram I find in the web.9 times out of 10 the map becomes much better that way.I also encourage my users to paint and change maps so it does not become a specialized livelink job.

8

Java Samples for Content Webservices

 
I LOST ALL CONTENT WHICH WAS STORED IN COMMUNITIES.OPENTEXT.COM.IF YOU ARE A STARTER READING THIS AND WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE ORIGINAL CONTENT DEPENDING ON TIME I HAVE I CAN SEND YOU SNIPPETS.LEAVE A COMMENT TO SUCH EFFECT.

Java Samples for Content Webservices are few and far in between.OT mainly puts samples in C# and many  a times I myself wonder if my company did not allow me to do that how I would do that in Java.In all truth OT ships a massive application called TreeView.java and TreeView.s ln for both languages .But the java thing takes a lot of setup especially if one was not keeping active in that world.However I used the NetBeansIDE to actually do most of that so I use that debugging environment to try all my java stuff Recently I debugged how to run a Live Report in livelink via C# webservices.Then somebody wanted me to show them how to do it via Java.One of these days I want to return to seeing if I can do all this command line with nothing else other than notepad.

Well I created two word documents, my guess is the poster did not speak english  very well,did not know livelink nor did know java to start with  .Hence I dumbed it enough for people to follow in almost any criteria.

 

Having livelink and its builder helps me in my endeavours and so Oscript remains my first love although I am getting farther and farther from it all

 

I have these files in the Communities website

If I had a LR taking a string parameter  how to write that in Java(C# is available aplenty)

If I had a LR taking a integer parameter how to write that in Java(C#is available aplenty)

There is a bug with Live Report Extensions.A poster in KB said that OT is aware of it.

Why Having LR Extensions(something that Webreports) company produces breaks Livereport calling with Webservices of OT