Initiator Conditions and Iteration
Initiator Conditions
The 6connect ACP system uses “initiator conditions” as a pre-routing system to determine, based on user-given data, which step is executed first. This is particularly useful for data unification processes. For example, a Workflow can be configured to accept both a Customer Name or a Customer Id, but if a Customer Name is provided to start at a step which first looks up the Customer Id before proceeding to the main work.
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In the case of simple numeric iteration, the data supplied will the iteration count, starting from zero.
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One major difference is that a series of Sub-steps does not have an “Output,” but instead has a new field in its General Options field titled “Write output in parent scope.” This field substitutes for an Output area and allows the user to specify where to put the output of this call. NEED NEED EXAMPLES FROM TONY
Each Inner Workflow can have, if needed, Sub-steps of is own, creating an Inner-Inner Workflow. There is no limit to how many Workflows deep this can go.
Generic Connectors
The Generic Connector system is designed to allow ACP to support API-providing systems which do not have a predefined built-in connector. For example, there may be a network appliance which offers an API that ACP does not natively support. In this case the user can employ a Generic Connector to manually define the API endpoints offered by this appliance and then integrate its functions with an ACP workflow as normal.
The Generic Connector section can be found by clicking on the graph icon on the left-hand navigation bar.
This brings up the main Generic Connectors List screen.
The Generic Connectors List screen. From this screen you can edit or delete existing Generic Connectors.
Clicking on ‘Add Connector’ brings up a form which allows the user to name the new connector, add a short description, and pick the authentication type and communications protocol this connector will employ.
Authentication methods currently supported are “HTTP Basic”, “vCenter”, and “None.”
The only communications protocol currently supported is “HTTP.”
Completing the form and clicking the ‘add’ button will add the Generic Connector to the connectors list.
Endpoints can be added to a Generic Connector by clicking on the ‘edit’ icon to the right of each Connector’s name. This brings up a screen which displays a form for adding new Endpoints above the list for managing existing Endpoints.
The General Options area is where the information necessary to properly execute the API action is defined. There are several fields:
Unique call name: the name for this endpoint within ACP.
Endpoint http method: the HTTP header for accessing this endpoint (GET, POST, etc).
Endpoint pathname: the path of this API action. Note: the connector configuration modal on each ACP Workflow will ask you for the location of the API service. This pathname is the path to be used *after* the location of the service is defined. For example, if an API endpoint is “https://127.0.0.1/services/action1/”, the connector location will be defined as “https://127.0.0.1/services” and the endpoint pathname will be “/action1/”.
Endpoint family name: ACP organizes API endpoints into families for easier lookups. This field allows you to define what family this endpoint falls into. Families are automatically created from the contents of this field.
Friendly endpoint name: a more user-friendly name for this endpoint.
Endpoint description: a short description of what this endpoint does.
Rollback call: the unique call name which will be invoked if this call fails and rollbacks are enabled. Optional.
Use this call to test credentials: When the user is filling out the connector’s location and authentication details in a Workflow the ‘test’ button does a quick call to a specified endpoint to verify the credentials are working. This toggle defines whether or not this endpoint is appropriate for this test.
Content-type header: The content-type header sent to the API service by the HTTP protocol.
Once a Generic Connector has been defined it can be selected from the Connectors section of any Workflow.
Workflows Executing Workflows
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For example, imagine a situation where a Workflow integrates between some 3rd party billing software and customer information stored in 6connect ProVision. A simple workflow might accept user credentials (user names, account numbers, etc) and then verify them with ProVision, the billing software, or both. This simple workflow would return the user object on success, but an error on failure.
On its own, this doesn’t seem to do much, but this Workflow can be used as the first step of all subsequent Workflows, drastically cutting down on the clutter and overhead as well as allowing for easy single-point for maintenance in case of shifts in the underlying technologies.
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