Oracle IPM: Customizing AXF Task Details page – Add new actions: Invoke Outcome

This blog guides you to add functionality to the existing composites. There are 3 different type of actions configurable with Oracle provided AP Solution Accelerator.

• Invoke “outcome” of human task
• Do validations, like Transaction id is blank.
• Allow user to pick user/ Group from list.

The below description focuses on “invoke outcome”. Remaining type of actions and its details will follow on next blogs.

For each solution namespace (can be analogous to BPEL composite, most of the times) that you create, there is an AXF Tasklist page (url has “cmd=Start<SOLN_NAMESPACE>&sol=<SOLN_NAMESPACE>” – assuming that you have already made the database entries for Start<SOLUTION_NAMESPACE>. If not, do not worry, there will soon be another article explaining how to do that) where the end user is provided with the option to take any of the actions that you have configured in your BPEL Human Task. The AXF task list page for a particular Solution Namespace and Command Namespace provides you with all the instances of invoices currently under a particular view.

View Task opens the AXF Task Details page, which has some actions in the left side bar.

In case you want more flexibility with these actions, you need to do some data manipulations in the AXF Database, using the DEV_IPM schema.

Let us first look at the tables in this story:

     1.      AXF_ACTION_MENU

In this table, the entry for Solution_Namespace is made.

Menu_ID is auto incremented using a sequence (AXF_ACTION_MENU_SEQ).

Rest all the entries are to be done as they are for other rows.

     2.       AXF_ACTIONS

This table maps the actions displayed on the UI. For each action displayed on the UI, there is a corresponding COMMAND_NAMESPACE entry here in this table.

Action_ID is again auto incremented using the sequence AXF_ACTIONS_SEQ.

Display_Text is the label you want to give your action on the UI.

Menu_Order acts as a rendering switch – 0 means visible and other values means not rendered.

Menu_ID is the same as the one in the AXF_ACTION_MENU table, for the Solution_Namespace.

     3.       AXF_COMMANDS

In this table a command class is configured for your Solution Namespace and Command Namespace. Usually, it depends upon what your action actually does. For example, oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.CompleteTaskCommand is used when the action signifies completion of a flow or a sub flow. oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.OpenTaskCommand is used when a new flow is initiated. Here, for a new action, you will need the following entries:

SOLUTION_NAMESPACE	COMMAND_CLASS	COMMAND_NAMESPACE
<Your_Solution_Namespace>	oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.AutotaskCommand	AutoOpenTask
<Your_Solution_Namespace>	oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.ReleaseTaskCommand	CancelTask
<Your_Solution_Namespace>	oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.CompleteTaskCommand	<Command Namespace you entered in AXF_ACTIONS>
<Your_Solution_Namespace>	oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.OpenTaskCommand	OpenTask
<Your_Solution_Namespace>	oracle.imaging.axf.commands.bpel.ReleaseTaskCommand	SkipTask

     4.       AXF_SOLUTIONS

AXF_SOLUTIONS consists of a SOLUTION_CONTEXT entry, which is usually the same for all the Solution Namespaces, namely, ejb.AxfCommandMediator#oracle.imaging.axf.service.AxfCommandMediatorRemote.

     5.       AXF_SOLUTION_PARAMETERS

This perhaps is the most important table because is maps the outcomes of various actions for consumption by either your BPEL process or by AXF internally. Let’s have a closer look at the values that need to be entered here, and what they represent.

For each Command Namespace (i.e. the action you want to add to the UI), there will be 3 entries, which will have the following values:

On the AXF Worklist page, there is an Auto Task button, clicking which open up all tasks in the list in serial order for appropriate actions to be taken by the user. The CMD_AUTOTASK_OFF parameter key’s value will redirect AXF view to the default starting point of your AXF flow in the case when the Auto Task function is not available to the user.

CMD_AUTOTASK_ON points to AutoOpenTask, which is nothing but another Command Namespace created as a part of the Start<Solution_Namespace> entries. The details for AutoOpenTask are as follows:

If you are creating a new composite and don’t have the Start<SolutionNamespace> entries in place, then you will have to do that first.

OUTCOME maps to the value which your BPEL flow is expecting as a return value from the Human Task in this case.

PS: Please note that you are not supposed to create the entries for AutoOpenTask as a part of this exercise. It is a separate topic, and will be addressed in another post.

    6.       AXF_SOLUTION_ATTRIBUTES

In this table, there are 3 entries that are required. There is a snapshot of the actual data below:

SOLUTION_NAMESPACE	PARAMETER_KEY	PARAMETER_VALUE
< SolutionNamespace>	BPEL_CONNECTION	SOA Server
< SolutionNamespace>	CONNECTION_PROVIDER	oracle.imaging.axf.servicemodules.bpel.workflow.AxfWorkflowServiceModule
< SolutionNamespace>	USE_AUTOTASK_LOCKING	FALSE

The keys CONNECTION_PROVIDER and USE_AUTOTASK_LOCKING are given the standard values, as in the snapshot. BPEL_CONNECTION is the name of the connection that is created for the SOA Server in IPM UI.

Once the entries are made using values that we are supposed to enter in various tables as described above, there is one final step that remains to be done for the changes to reflect on the AXF Task details page.

Open the IPM Drivers UI (http://<your_server_ip>:16000/imaging/faces/Driver.jspx). The page that looks like this:

Enter the Solution Namespace, Command Namespace (Remember, the Start<SolutionNamespace> command namespace. And yes, it is a Command Namespace, though it is never shown as an action on the Task details page!!!) and the user name.

Click on Execute Request.

Click on Clear Configuration Cache.

Click on Reset DMS Metrics.

Click on Execute Response. This shall open your AXF Tasklist page in a new tab, and you should be able to see the newly added action on the details page.

Thanks all for reading!