StarTeam Workflow Extensions Features

This section describes workflow, the StarTeam Workflow Extensions and its components, and gives you a roadmap for implementing workflow in your organization.

Workflow

Workflow is a comprehensive term to explain a process by which members of an organization complete complex tasks. Whether your organization uses formalized or ad hoc workflows, there is a process or pattern by which work is accomplished. One employee begins a task and passes it along to someone else for review. That person gives the project to yet a third person to finalize and then it goes back to person number two for final review, and so on. Workflow software can automate workflow by providing automatic notification of responsibility, by presenting only appropriate options at each step in the process, and by assuring that items are acted upon in a timely manner.

The most difficult part of designing a workflow process is deciding what you want to control and how you want to control it. Once you have determined your needs, StarTeam Workflow Extensions along with StarTeam give you all the tools you need to create customized workflow models that meet the unique requirements of your organization.

In this guide, the term workflow is used to denote a .Workflow.xml file that indicates step-by-step how items of a particular type will be processed.

You can create a workflow to control any item type within StarTeam, such as files, change requests, requirements, tasks, or topics. Because teams commonly control processes using change request statuses, the change request management system offers a simple, built-in workflow pattern based on the Status property. It requires a change request to proceed sequentially through a specific number of ordered steps and notifies team members of their responsibilities at each stage of the change request life cycle. This workflow pattern meets the needs of many organizations.

For some organizations, however, the built-in workflow model is too much. Their workflow models do not require that many steps or that many choices. For other organizations, the built-in workflow model is not enough. They have requirements for complex workflow patterns that may include a time-dependent response from the team member who is responsible for a specific step or may require redirection of the workflow based on specific conditions.

StarTeam Extensions

StarTeam Extensions include:

Alternate Property Editors (APEs), forms written in Java, replace the standard properties dialog boxes that come with each component of the application.
A workflow engine that reads the appropriate .Workflow.xml file and populates the APEs.
A toolbar that can be used with the StarTeam Cross-Platform Client to start applications that add new features to the application.
Various other utilities and libraries written in Java.

The default installation folder is C:\Program Files\Micro Focus\ StarFlow Extensions, but we recommend copying these files to a different folder for each server configuration that runs on the same StarTeam Server. For example, you might use C:\config_name\StarFlow Extensions. In this way, you can ensure that each configuration’s StarFlow Extensions project has different working folders.

Even if you currently run only one server configuration, it is wise to plan ahead. This also ensures that, when you upgrade or reinstall for some other reason, you are unlikely to overwrite any StarTeam Extensions files that you are using.

StarTeam Workflow Designer

You must use Workflow Designer to develop custom workflows. Workflow Designer outputs .xml files that formalize the steps in a workflow, specifies who will be notified about each step and about exceptions, and so on. Each file is named item_type.Workflow.xml and can be used for an entire project or individual views within that project. The StarTeam Extensions workflow engine and StarTeam Notification Agent read from these files.

Workflow Designer can be installed separately on any workstation.

StarTeam Notification Agent

The StarTeam Notification Agent monitors server configurations to determine who needs to be notified about work to be performed and about exceptions that occur in the workflow process. It must be installed and set up separately. It is usually installed on the computer that runs the StarTeam Server, but it can be installed anywhere. When the StarTeam Notification Agent is not on the same computer as the StarTeam Server, the two computers’ clocks must be synchronized. The StarTeam Notification Agent’s time cannot be ahead of the StarTeam Server’s time.

When changing the enumerated values for fields used to control notification (for example, when updating the workflow for a project or view), restart the Notification Agent so that it updates its cache.

Repository Customization

StarTeam allows you to create custom fields to meet the needs of a workflow process. One enumerated property field controls the workflow process for the item type. The selected field usually requires some customization, even when it is an existing application property field.

You can customize the property fields in a server configuration for an item type by using StarTeam and, to some degree, by using StarTeam Workflow Designer.

StarTeam SDK

The APEs and the applications that run from the StarTeam Workflow Extensions toolbar (in the StarTeam Cross-Platform Client) are StarTeam SDK applications.

See the online documentation for APEs (that can be installed with StarTeam Workflow Extensions) and the online documentation that comes with the SDK for more details.