Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

Table of Contents

Problem Statement

English

In this article, we will walkthrough the thought process of designing a solution for the following business use case:-

  1. The visitor would request a demo by submitting a form in the Joget app.
  2. Upon submission of the form, fields will be validated to make sure that all mandatory fields are filled up.
  3. Upon successful validation of data, the form data will be shared with an external system (i.e. CRM software) for further processing through the use of plugins (i.e. JSON API Tool) or Bean Shell code. More on this later on.

  4. The main objective is to ensure the successful delivery of data with the external system.

This is an example of what the form would look like.


Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 1

The only external factor that may be outside of the Joget platform's control would be the external integration with the CRM software. We will walkthrough a few scenarios on how best to design for this business use case with  UI/UX kept in mind.

...

  1. We will start with designing the form itself. The form itself is quite simple, with just 3 fields and all of them made mandatroy.
    Image RemovedImage Added
    Figure 2

  2. In the userview, we are making use of the Form Menu and link it to the form we have just designed.
    Image RemovedImage Added
    Figure 3

    Configure "Action to Perform After Form Saved" to redirect to a "HTML Page" to show form submitted message (e.g. Form submitted. Thank you!).

  3. Do not forget to create a CRUD menu too so that we can browse through all the submissions easily using Generate CRUD.
    Image RemovedImage Added
    Figure 4

  4. At this point in time, there's no integration yet with the external CRM.

...

  1. Form Validation - Joget would iterate through each and every form element and invoking the validator (if configured).
    Image RemovedImage Added
    Figure 5

    If all validations pass, then it will move to the next step, else, end user will be redirected back to the same form with validation errors displayed like what is shown in the screenshot below.
    Image RemovedImage Added
    Figure 6

  2. Form Store - Since validations have passed, Joget will now proceed to the next step, form data will be passed to the store binder.
    Image RemovedImage Added
    Image Added
    Figure 7

    By default, the load/store binder is Workflow Form BinderDefault where it will load and store form data into the table name declared in the form properties. In this case, the table name is "demo_request".
  3. Since we are using Workflow Form BinderDefault, this would also mean that we are saving the form data locally in Joget's database.

...

The easiest, no-code approach is to make use of JSON API Tool plugin itself. The JSON Tool itself is a Process Tool & Post Form Submission Processing Plugin. This means that we can invoke it from within a process flow or from the submission of the form.

...

  1. We can also write Bean Shell code. Here's a quick sample code to make HTTP get call.

    Code Block
    languagejava
    titleBean Shell code to make restful API calls sample
    linenumberstrue
    import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
    import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
    import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpRequestBase;
    import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
    import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClients;
    import java.io.IOException;
    import org.joget.commons.util.LogUtil;
    
    try{
    	String jsonUrl = "http://localhost:8080/jw/web/json/workflow/assignment/list/count?packageId=crm"; //sample url
    	String name = "header1";
    	String value = "value1";
    
    	CloseableHttpClient client = null;
    	CloseableHttpClient client = HttpClients.createDefault();
    
    	HttpRequestBase request = null;
    	request = new HttpGet(jsonUrl);
    	request.setHeader(name, value);
    
    	HttpResponse response = client.execute(request);
    
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        LogUtil.error(getClass().getName(), ex, "");
    } finally {
        try {
            if (request != null) {
                request.releaseConnection();
            }
            if (client != null) {
                client.close();
            }
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            LogUtil.error(getClass().getName(), ex, "");
        }
    }

    We can execute this piece of code from various plugin types giving us the flexibility on where/when we want to invoke it. The only disadvantage compared to the former is that we need to maintain the custom coding ourselves instead of configuring through a plugin. These are the plugin types relevant to our solution to call the code from:-

    1. Bean Shell for Process Tool
    2. BeanShell Validator
    3. Bean Shell Form BinderData Store 


Method 3 - JSON Tool from Bean Shell Code

...

By using Post Form Submission Processing in Form, and "Method 1 JSON Call" earlier, this is the easiest and quickest method. This allows us to invoke any Process Tool & Post Form Submission Processing PluginJSON API Tool is one such candidate.

Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 9

  • Upon form submission, form fields will be validated, with its form data stored, then, the "Post Form Submission Processing" will be triggered.
  • Response time of form submission will now include complete execution of the JSON Tool.
  • Imagine that the external JSON API takes longer than expected to respond, the end user will be kept waiting.
  • Depending on the feature of the API call, we would assume that it would return a response to indicate successful execution. For example:-

    Code Block
    languagejs
    titleSample JSON Call Response
    { "success" : "true" }
  • By using this integration point, there's no way to redirect the user to other place/menu when error occurs.

...

To avoid the waiting time for JSON Tool to finish executing, we can place it under Multi Tools instead.

Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 10

Set the "Run Mode" such that it would execute the process tool (JSON Tool) in a new thread.

...

We can try to throw an exception instead in the Bean Shell code that we are writing.

Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 12

This approach suffers from the following issues:-

...

Taking cues from method 2 earlier, we will put the new plugin in Multi Tools and set the Run Mode to "Run tools sequentially in a new single thread". This is so that customer does not need to wait for JSON call to complete.

Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 13

The following is a new section to configure to capture the JSON call's response status.

We created a new form to capture the JSON call log.

Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 14

In this screenshot below, we are able to inspect each of the form submission made (left) and the result of the API call (right).

...

For example, we can make use of the Form Update Process Tool Datalist Action and map to the JSON Tool.

Image RemovedImage Added

Figure 18

Once it is tested working, we can consider automating it and set up a scheduler job - iterate through the same list and execute JSON Tool using Iterator Process Tool.

...