The WorkflowKernel
The WorkflowKernel is the core component of the Imixs-Workflow API. The WorkflowKernel controls the flow of a process instance according to the process model definition. The WorkflowKernel is initialized by the Workflowmanager which provides the Model definition and also the plug-ins applied to the process model. To process a single Workitem the WorkflowKernel provides the public method process().
process(ItemCollection workitem)
Registration of Workflow Plug-ins
In the processing phase of a WorkItem the WorkflowKernel calls the plugins registered by teh WorkflowManager. To register a plug-in class the WorkflowKernel provides the method :
registerPlugin(String)
Plug-ins registered by the WorkflowManager will be called during the processing phase of a workitem. See the section plug-in api for further details about the plug-in concept.
The registration of a plug-in can be done ba instance of a plug-in class or by the class name.
kernel = new WorkflowKernel(ctx); // register plug-in by name kernel.registerPlugin(MyPlugin.class.getName()); // register plug-in by instance kernel.registerPlugin(new MyPlugin()); // process workitem kernel.process(workitem);
A plug-in can also be injected by a CDI mechanism. Registered plug-ins are always each processing phase of a workitem. To unregister a single workItem the method unregisterPlugin can be called
// unregister plug-in by name kernel.unregisterPlugin(MyPlugin.class.getName());
The Processing Phase
By calling the method process() from the WorkflowKernel the processing phase or a WorkItem can be started. During the processing phase the WorkflowKernel loads all activity entities assigned to the current process status and performs a call-back life-cycle for all registered plug-ins. A plug-in can extend the the processing phase by adding additional activities on the activity stack which is defined by the property ‘$activityidlist’ of the process instance. After the processing phase is finished the WorkflowKernel applies the new process status to the WorkItem depending on the process definition.
The WorkflowContext
The Interface org.imixs.workflow.WorkflowContext defines an abstraction of the workflow management system. The WorkflowContext is used by the WorkflowKernel to provide the runtime-environment information to registered Plug-ins.
The WorkflowContext provides the following methods:
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| getSessionContext() | returns a session object (e.g. EJB Context or Web Session) |
| getModel() | returns an instance of the current model implementation |
| getLogLevel() | returns the current log level |
The session context is platform specific, for example a surrounding EJB Context, a Web Module or a Spring Context. As the WorkflowKernel is part of the Imixs-Workflow core API it is a platform independent building block. There fore the WorkflowContext builds the bridge between the Workflow System and the processing engine. For details about the concrete implementation see the WorkflowService implementation.
The Workflow Log
The Imixs WorkflowKernel generates a log entry during each processing life-cycle with information about the current modelversion, the process entity and the processed workflow activity. The log is stored in the property ‘txtWorkflowActivityLog’. The log entry has the following format:
ISO8601 Time | Model Version | Process.ActivityID | NewProcessID | comment /optional)
Example:
2014-08-10T16:44:32.025|1.0.0|100.10|100| 2014-08-10T16:45:32.125|1.0.0|100.10|100| 2014-08-10T16:47:12.332|1.0.0|100.20|200|userid|comment
The comment is an optional value which can be provided by a plugin. The comment should be stored into the property ‘txtworkflowactivitylogComment’ of the current document context. If no txtworkflowactivitylogComment is provided the comment section is empty.
