Developing Step Processors

Development of a custom Step Processor can range from relatively simple changes, such as customizing the user interface to modify the look and feel of a supplied sample Step Processor, to more complex changes that modify the Step Processor's layout and controls for specific business logic requirements, to extensive changes including content integration, accessing different data sources, modifying access and authentication. You can also build your own Step Processor.

For complete information, see Developing a Java™ Step Processor and Developing an HTML Step Processor in the Web Application Toolkit.

For information on HTML Step Processors for ASP/ASP.NET environments, see the accompanying documentation for the FileNet® Web Services and FileNet Open Client distributions.

The following table provides a description of the fundamental approaches to Step Processor development:

Customize

Changes

Description

User Interface Modify the look and feel of the user interface.
  • HTML Step Processors

    Modify/customize the View UI JavaServer Pages (JSP), UI Module (JavaBean), XSL stylesheet, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). Remember to verify that the Event JSP redirects control to the appropriate corresponding UI JSP page. You can copy and modify the sample HTML Step Processor provided in FileNet P8 Web Application Toolkit Basic Step Processor Sample Code. To download this sample code from the IBM support page, see Accessing IBM FileNet Documentation.

  • Java Step Processors

    Copy and modify the sample Java Step Processor provided with the Process development environment, or develop your own Java Step Processor user interface. See Using the Sample Java Step Processors.

  Modify the page layout or structure of the Step Processor.
  • HTML Step Processors

    Create/use an object (in the HTML header section) for the HTML page. In the layout section, the WcmUI.render method is called for each UI module that generates HTML output from XML. The WcmUI.render method in turn calls the individual render methods of the UI modules. Override the base UI module methods to customize the presentation. In addition, you can create custom tab bars, tool bars, and other UI elements and place them into a containment module using the appropriate UI module's methods.

  • Java Step Processors

    Copy and modify the sample Java Step Processor provided with the Process development environment, or develop your own Java Step Processor user interface. See Using the Sample Java Step Processors.

  Add new user controls, modify or hide existing controls.
Content Integration Modify integration with the Content Engine to access Content Engine objects.
  • HTML Step Processors

    The Web Application Toolkit data providers are JavaBeans that pass data between UI modules and the Process Engine and Content Engine Java APIs. Each data provider caches its data to the data store bean, providing a common connection point for one or more UI modules. In addition, you can create new data providers to retrieve data from other backend sources, such as from a database server, mainframe, or other legacy system.

  • Java Step Processors

    Use the Process APIs to integrate with the Process Engine. For information on configuration-related API calling sequences, see Administration and Configuration API Relationships. For information on API calling sequences used to for such operations as querying a queue and retrieving Step elements, see Runtime API Relationships.

Build Your Own Create your own Step Processors using a framework that incorporates a custom user interface and integrates Content data and Process Engine services.