The Intermediate Event element is located in the Event & Gateway drawer of the process editor palette.
This element is one of Xpert.ivy facilities to integrate custom-made software, legacy systems, proprietary applications or any other external system through an Xpert.ivy Java interface. At an Intermediate Event element the process execution is interrupted and waits for an external event to occur. Technically spoken the current task will be ended and a new system task is created that waits for the intermediate event. If the intermediate event is fired the new task and therefore the process after the intermediate event will be executed.
You provide a listener for the external event by implementing a Java class that
implements the
IProcessIntermediateEventBean
interface. The Intermediate Event
Element instantiates the Java class and can then trigger the intermediate event by
calling the method fireProcessIntermediateEventEx
on the Xpert.ivy runtime
engine
IProcessIntermediateEventBeanRuntime
. The common way to implement
an Intermediate Event bean is to extend the abstract base class
AbstractProcessIntermediateEventBean
. The interface also includes
an inner editor class to parametrize the bean. You will find the documentation of the
interface and the abstract class in the Java Doc of the Xpert.ivy Public API.
This tab is included in the mask of all process elements and contains the name and a description of the element. See Name Tab for a more detailed description.
On this tab you define the Java class that the IntermediateEvent should instantiate, the identifier of the event to wait for and the timeout behaviour.
Fully qualified name of the Java class that implements the
IProcessIntermediateEventBean
interface. Use the
New Bean Class
Wizard () to create a new Java source
file with an example implementation of the bean class.
Because multiple cases (process instances) can wait on the same intermediate event you must specify which event belongs to which waiting case. Here you specify the identifier of the event the current case should wait for.
The event identifier as a String must be unique. Do not use a
static string like "myID"
. A good practice is to
integrate the case identifier
(ivy.case.getIdentifier()
) into the event id.
Here you can specify a time (Duration) how long the current case should wait for an intermediate event and what should happen if no event has been received after this time. You can optionally start an exception process, delete the waiting task or continue the waiting task without receiving an intermediate event.
This tab displays the editor, that can be integrated in the external Java bean of the
process element. The editor is implemented as an inner public static class of the Java bean
class and must have the name Editor
. Additionally the editor class must
implement the
IProcessExtensionConfigurationEditorEx
interface. The common way to
implement the editor class is to extend the abstract base class
AbstractProcessExtensionConfigurationEditor
and to override the
methods createEditorPanelContent
, loadUiDataFromConfiguration
and
saveUiDataToConfiguration
. The method createEditorPanelContent
can be used to build the UI components of the editor. You can add any AWT/Swing component to
the given editorPanel
parameter. With the given editorEnvironment
parameter, which is of the type
IProcessExtensionConfigurationEditorEnvironment
, you can create text
fields that support ivyScript and has smart buttons which provide access to the process
data, environment functions and Java classes.
Here is an example of such an editor:
As you can see, the editor provides you access to any process relevant data, which can be used by your own process elements. For instance, you can easily transfer process data to your legacy system.
The following part shows the implementation of the editor shown above. As mentioned above
Xpert.ivy provides the
IIvyScriptEditor
which represents a text field with ivyScript support
and smart buttons. Inside createEditorPanelContent
use the method
createIvyScriptEditor
from the editorEnvironment
parameter to
create an instance of such an editor. Use the loadUiDataFromConfiguration
method to read the bean configuration and set them to the UI components. Inside this method
you can use the methods getBeanConfiguration
or
getBeanConfigurationProperty
to read the bean configuration. Use the method
saveUiDataToConfiguration
to save the data in the UI components to the bean
configuration. Inside this method you can use the methods setBeanConfiguration
or setBeanConfigurationProperty
to save the bean configuration.
public static class Editor extends AbstractProcessExtensionConfigurationEditor { private IIvyScriptEditor editorUser; private IIvyScriptEditor editorEventTyp; private IIvyScriptEditor editorLinkId; private IIvyScriptEditor editorFieldValue; @Override protected void createEditorPanelContent(Container editorPanel, IProcessExtensionConfigurationEditorEnvironment editorEnvironment) { editorPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(4,2)); editorUser = editorEnvironment.createIvyScriptEditor(null,null, "String"); editorEventTyp = editorEnvironment.createIvyScriptEditor(null,null, "String"); editorLinkId = editorEnvironment.createIvyScriptEditor(null, null, "String"); editorFieldValue = editorEnvironment.createIvyScriptEditor(null, null); editorPanel.add(new JLabel("User")); editorPanel.add(editorUser.getComponent()); editorPanel.add(new JLabel("Event Typ")); editorPanel.add(editorEventTyp.getComponent()); editorPanel.add(new JLabel("Link-Id")); editorPanel.add(editorLinkId.getComponent()); editorPanel.add(new JLabel("Feldwert")); editorPanel.add(editorFieldValue.getComponent()); } @Override protected void loadUiDataFromConfiguration() { editorUser.setText(getBeanConfigurationProperty("User")); editorEventTyp.setText(getBeanConfigurationProperty("EventTyp")); editorLinkId.setText(getBeanConfigurationProperty("LinkId")); editorFieldValue.setText(getBeanConfigurationProperty("Feldwert")); } @Override protected boolean saveUiDataToConfiguration() { setBeanConfigurationProperty("User", editorUser.getText()); setBeanConfigurationProperty("EventTyp", editorEventTyp.getText()); setBeanConfigurationProperty("LinkId", editorLinkId.getText()); setBeanConfigurationProperty("Feldwert", editorFieldValue.getText()); return true; } }
At runtime you have to evaluate the IvyScript the user have entered into the ivy script
editors. If you implement for example the
AbstractUserProcessExtension
class there is a perform method which is
executed at runtime. At this point you want to access the configured data in the editor. The
following code snippet show how you can evaluate the value of an
IIvyScriptEditor
. If you use the
IIvyScriptEditor
you only get the value by calling the
executeIvyScript
method of the
AbstractUserProcessExtension
.
public CompositeObject perform(IRequestId requestId, CompositeObject in, IIvyScriptContext context) throws Exception { IIvyScriptContext ownContext; CompositeObject out; out = in.clone(); ownContext = createOwnContext(context); String eventtyp = ""; String linkId = ""; String fieldValue = ""; String user= ""; user = (String)executeIvyScript(ownContext, getConfigurationProperty("User")); eventtyp = (String)executeIvyScript(ownContext, getConfigurationProperty("Event Typ")); linkId = (String)executeIvyScript(ownContext, getConfigurationProperty("Link-Id")); fieldValue = (String)executeIvyScript(ownContext, getConfigurationProperty("Feldwert")); // add your call here return out; }
On this tab you configure the parameters of the awaited event which is handled as an
Intermediate Event Task. Thus it can be displayed in a task list with a filter
applied to the task kind parameter. The task kind code is the internally used
identifier to sort and order the processes. The task kind name is a human readable
description of the code. The Business milestone usually sets the current
DateTime
for process activity analysis and reports.
You can set the name of the business calendar that should be used for the task. In the
context of the task ivy.cal
will return this business calendar
regardless of what you've set for the case.
For more information about business calendar administration see the server guide.
For more information about business calendar usage see the Public API of
ch.ivyteam.ivy.application.calendar.IDefaultBusinessCalendar
.
On this tab you can configure the output of the element (i.e. the data that leaves
the element). You can use the variable result
that holds additional
information about the event received by the Java class.
See Output Tab for a more detailed description.
For each incoming connection you have a separate inX object available which carries the data of the Xth input. Hover with the mouse over the incoming connections of the element to learn which input connection corresponds to which variable.