Workflow Designer & Documentation
I want to get below my simple "Hello World" workflow and integrate mapping stuff, including zooming to a particular extent. I assume I need to use the "SetMapExtent" activity, under the Geocortex.Workflow.Activities namespace. However, I'm not able to find documentation that explains how to go about doing that (Ditto for any of the other objects/activities/whatever.
Where do I go to figure this stuff out?
Mike.
P.S. I'm getting the sense that although the workflow designer is a graphical interface to streamline the building of workflows, it seems that one needs to be an application developer to fully understand it. I'm just wondering, how far can a non-application developer can go and build these workflows.
Mike.
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I think I have a misunderstanding of the role of the Workflow Designer in "creating" versus "configuring" a workflow. The videos and online samples seem to indicate that one needs a developer and Visual Studio to "create" activities, and the Workflow Designer is used to string them together. The designer part can be done by a non-developer. Is this accurate?
Also, expanding upon the first question of the previous post, for someone working in just the Workflow Designer, is there any literature on the inputs/outputs of the following activities (that seem to come out of the box):
- Refresh Map
- Run External Command
- Set Map Extent
- Assign
- Buffer Geometry
- Merge Geometry
- ArcGIS -> Geocortex Geometry
- Geocortex Geometry -> ArcGIS
- Geocode
- Get Geometries
- Query Task
- Reverse Geocode
In the end, one of the more complex workflows I want to create is to have a user click on the map (near a river) and have a workflow/geoprocessing routine run, that will snap to our river geometric network and do a trace upstream a defined distance to find all boat landings. Right now, I'm not sure what the capabilities of available activities are, nor how to string them together. I'd like to get a sense of how much we will need a developer to create that verus what can be accomplished through the workflow designed as-is.
Thoughts?
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I second that!
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does it count if I third it /customer/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=00P6000000e87wLEAQ
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I will add a request also for more information on the Workflow product. It is marketed as an inclusion in the core Essentials product, yet the documentation and help on the product is severely lacking. I've watched the couple of webinars but they just give you an overview really. More detailed workflow examples that are documented would be extremely beneficial.
We plan on doing some training on it - being complete newbies to the Essentials product in general, but I would expect some more help with getting started with Workflow.
my 2c worth
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Hi Folks,
We are working on documentation and how-tos for the workflow designer and workflow in general.
In the meantime, the designer itself contains tool tips that give short descriptions on the purpose of a workflow item, and the inputs and outputs.
For example, if you hover over Geocode the tooltip is "Performs an ArcGIS Server Geocode Operation" and if you drag one on to your workflow, you'll be able to hover over the input boxes to get more info on what each requires.
Geocode is a good example because as soon as you add one, you'll get a notification saying that the URL can't be empty. If you enter a URL to an ArcGIS Server REST endpoint (such as http://sampleserver1.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/Locators/ESRI_Geocode_NA/GeocodeServer), then hit the Refresh button beside the URL box, the designer will query the service and fill out the inputs required by the operation.
We'll try to post more KB articles over the coming weeks to help get people going.
Regards,
-Malcolm
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Some activities are less obvious, such as the SetMapExtent. It seems to want an ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.Geometry.Envelope object as it's input. In .net code I would define a new envelope object and either through its constructor or properties to define the x1, y1, x2, y2. However, I have no idea how to do the same thing through the workflow designer.
Regarding the Geocode example, the output seems to be an object defined as a "System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable(Of ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.Tasks.AddressCanidate)" As a programmer, I can figure out what what means, but it's going to be a long meeting with my non-developers explaining how to work with it and extract the geometry (point) and run a buffer on it, followed by running a query to find nearby lakes.
Overall I think the Workflow Designer is going to be helpful for me (as a programmer), but it's somewhat of a stretch to expect non-developers to grasp the concepts and work with it without having background experience with .net development. How accurate is this - am I off the mark with this?
Mike.
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Hi Mike,
I think that you raise some very valid points. Creating more sophisticated workflows can be regarded as a "developer" task, and simple workflows can be created by non-developers - for example, consider a simple workflow for a search involving a form, a query task, and a select results activity. Strictly speaking, there is some "programming" that some workflows will require; although, this is typically simple variable assignment, casting, or arithmetic.
Malcolm alluded to that fact that we are working hard to improve the documentation. We certainly appreciate your patience while we put this together.
In Geocortex Essentials 3.4, we introduced 5 new sample workflows which are used by the sample "CharlotteBingMaps" and "CharlotteArcGISOnline" sites. Hopefully these samples will provide some direction for those who are creating workflows like the river tracing one you are describing.
In some cases, we have worked with organizations so that our services team will provide one or two initial workflows that are needed. This can be a good approach to getting functionality that you need in a short amount of time, while providing functioning workflows that can serve as a reference for your continued workflow development.
I'll answer your specific question about the "SetMapExtent" activity. Typically, we set the extent of the map using a geometry collected from another workflow activity. For example, if I do a query, and ask for the geometry from the resulting features. The ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.Geometry.Geometry object contains a property called "Extent" which can be used directly by the SetMapExtent activity. I would suggest taking this approach for your workflow.Thank you for your feedback! We will continue to improve our documentation on this matter in upcoming releases.
- Drew
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I want to configure a listbox for selecting from a list of items. I have entered my "url to the query service" as http://ilmorso3gi6/ArcGIS/rest/services/usa/MapServer/3/Query?
the program gives an error message about not allowing relative urls. So an example of how to configure a list box would be great!
J
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Hi Jeff,
The URL you're using should be valid. When I put it in my workflow designer here I don't get any errors. Please make sure there's no extra characters before the URL - without the http:// protocol, the URL will become relative (even if it's there somewhere)
Here are a few example values for a list box:
Query Task Url: http://sampleserver1.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/TaxParcel/AssessorsBasemap/MapServer/29/query
Query Where Clause: SCHLDSCRP LIKE 'B%'
Query Display Field: SCHLDSCRP
Hope this helps,
-Malcolm
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Malcolm, (or anyone out there!)
Could you please provide a simple 'list box' example for a search query? I'm flying blind to get something simple like this going with no documentation available. I get the dialog popping up in the client, but no values are in it!
I'm not sure how to post up my example (??) but if anyone could supply theirs that would be great as I don't have any example ones installed when I recently installed 3.4.1
any help appreciated
thanks again
Gareth
rename to .xaml (https://support.geocortex.com/Data/Sites/1/userfiles/1599/burn_origins_planned.txt) /Data/Sites/1/userfiles/1599/burn_origins_planned.txt
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Starting next week I will be posting a series of videos on workflow. They will be short 5-10 minutes videos that will show various examples.
I will make sure to include one on configuring ListBoxes. In the mean time, I would suggest using Fiddler to see what data the form is requesting (if you're using a query task in the ListBox). You should also be able to use the examples that ship with Essentials and are using ComboBoxes (it's practically the same configuration).
One thing to note about ListBox is that if you set it to "Multiple" the results will be an array of object.
Hope this helps,
Christian.
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Thanks Christian,
I've found the example workflows now, and have an auto populate entry working nicely! But I will have a look at the combo box one...
cheers
Gareth
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So I'm having a weird situation happening with my first workflow. It is a mail label routine, which I got from someone who I believe started with one of the examples. When it does a zoom and draw buffer, all of my other layers dissappear, and I can't get them back without refreshing the site. Turning off the produced graphics layer doesn't help. The mail labels are produced okay, but this will not work...
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The spatialreference variable was set to a different coordinate system...
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The first 2 videos in a series on workflow have been posted in our knowledge base section.
http://support.geocortex.com/workflow
Cheers,
Christian.
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