Should I integrate Activiti Explorer in my web app?

[andreasa]

Hi

I'm trying to deploy a process that use some custom Java-classes. I would like to be able to start and interact with this process from the Activiti Explorer.

If I try to start the process with the Explorer I get an exception because an instance of the class is not found. I assume this is because Explorer uses it's own process-engine instance which doesn't have access to the classes in the seperate web app I have deployed.

So should I manually merge Explorer into my webapp and make it use the process-engine instance from there?

[trademak]

Hi,

There are several options, but the easiest is probably to make the custom Java classes available in the WEB-INF/lib of the Activiti Explorer.
If that's a problem then you can consider integrating it in your application.

Best regards,

[vnama]

This may be a problem for me to add the Java classes to the Explorer library. I'm looking to integrate it using a web service or the REST API.
What I'm looking to do is be able to create hooks into my application at a certain point of a process. I would like to be able to register events from my application that can trigger a process, and run it inside the engine. Also I want to be able to communicate from Activiti to my application things about a current process. Does anyone have any ideas about how I can implement this?

[trademak]

Hi,

Did you look at the Activiti REST module? That should provide the remote API functionality you are looking for.

Best regards,

[vnama]

Thank you for the fast reply.

I have been looking at the REST module, but I am still unclear as to how to go about registering or listening for events from within a process. For example how can I have the start event of a process register an event that will be triggered from my application? Thank you again.

[talbeno]

Adding to the above. What could be a "clean" integration architecture is a way to inject into the process XML file / process definition generator, a reference to the following:
1. From a process step definition, a WS*/REST call to an outside program/URL. Without the need to bind with code (e.g. Java class).
2. Define a process event that can be triggered from an outside program over WS*/REST. Since you already have a REST API all that is needed is a mechanism to register to the external REST call, and then activating the step in the process that this event was attached to in RT.

Going over your documentation I assume that this integration layer is missing in the current product.
Is this true? Is this on the roadmap? Any advice for us how to implement it on our own?

Thanks,
Tal