Converts Activiti Enterprise packages to be able to run on Alfresco One on-premise instances (Community and Enterprise)
Alfresco One (Community and Enterprise), aka Alfresco on-premise, has a built-in copy of the Activiti workflow engine. You can build your own BPMN 2.0 workflows in any tool you like (such as the Activiti Designer), and then deploy these to the repo. You then need to create a matching model, and define some Share forms config to let your workflow play nicely in Share.
Recently, Alfresco Activiti Enterprise has launched, which is both a cloud-hosted and an on-premise version of the Activiti engine coupled with quite a nifty UI. Using this, it's possible for non-developers to easily design their own workflows (with an advanced BPMN 2.0 editor/designer, and a simpler step Editor), then create forms for them, which they can then deploy and test. All of this can be done from your browser, by a non-developer, in a quick way. It is possible to plug this into Alfresco One, but you need to buy it, and it involves quite a few changes.
Alternately, you can use the online version at http://activiti.alfresco.com/ to prototype, then when your business users + you are happy with how it's working there, export it + convert it + deploy in your on-premise Alfresco repo.
First, use http://activiti.alfresco.com/ to build your workflow and your forms for it. Test it there, make sure you're happy.
Next, export the Workflow, and export the App
Run this converter tool against the two, giving a name for the new on-premise version, and have the converted BPMN 2.0 + model + Share forms config generated for you.
Tweak these as needed (eg naming), then deploy to your on-premise Alfresco!
to-share.py <exported.bpmn> <exported-app.zip> <namespace prefix> [namespace uri] [module name] [output dir]
Where:
- exported.bpmn - BPMN workflow exported from Activiti
- exported-app.zip - App definition zip exported from Activiti
- namespace prefix - Prefix to use for the local version, eg sample-wf
- namespace uri - Optional, Workflow Model URI
- module name - Optional, name of Alfresco Module
This will generate in the output directory four files:
- module-context.xml - Context file to deploy the model and workflow, tweak the names and paths within this for your project
- model.xml - Alfresco Model (Types+Aspects) for the workflow form values
- share.xml - Share Custom Config with the form definitions in
- FIXME.bpmn20.xml - Updated BPMN workflow definition
- FIXME.java - Java class with workflow constants
After running the converter, review your output for sanity, and fix any errors / warnings reported during the run. Next, rename your files to have sensible names for your use case, and edit the module name and BPMN file name in the module context.
Copy the following to your Alfresco install:
- renamed FIXME.bpmn20.xml -> Alfresco classes/alfresco/module/mname/renamed.bpmn20.xml
- module-context.xml -> Alfresco classes/alfresco/module/mname/
- model.xml -> Alfresco classes/alfresco/module/mname/
And to your Share install:
- share.xml -> Share classes/alfresco/web-extension/share-config-custom.xml
Currently, only simpler workflows and applications can be converted. You will received warnings and errors for unsupported features.
Required fields, default values and multiple values are currently not supported. Fields using those get converted into simple single value fields.
Activiti-online style Due Dates are not supported, and will be ignored.
At this time, column information in the form definition is discarded, and the generated Share configuration is simply created with a single column.
This tool works fine on Windows, provided that a suitable Python runtime is present, and that the prompt running it supports UTF-8 when required.
Many Activiti Online exported field definitions seem to make use of non-ASCII characters in field IDs, Names and Descriptions, including fancy quote characters. In order for the tool to be able to log these, it needs an output console / window / cmd prompt that supports those characters. Normally that means one that's in UTF-8 mode.
If you get errors about encodings when trying to run the program, try forcing your command prompt into UTF-8 mode by first running: chcp 65001 You might need to also switch your console font to "Lucida"
Activiti Online: http://activiti.alfresco.com/
Building an App with the Activiti Step Editor: http://docs.alfresco.com/activiti/topics/app-step-editor.html
Tutorial on Activiti Workflows in Alfresco: http://ecmarchitect.com/alfresco-developer-series-tutorials/workflow/tutorial/tutorial.html