A work performer is an application that performs an operation or set of operations that is associated with a workflow.
There are two types of work performers:
This type of work performer is a component based on either a Java™ class or a Java Message Service (JMS) event. A Java component can be used to perform all operations that are associated with a workflow. The Component Integrator enables the importing of Java or JMS components and interfaces to make them available from steps in workflows. It also manages the communication of events between the Content Platform Engine and a Java or JMS (Java Message Service) queue. A workflow step can then call a Java component to perform custom operations, or (for JMS) post an event to a message queue.
The Component Integrator uses the following facilities:
Component Manager configures and communicates with the service adapters. At run time, Component Manager polls component queues for work items that request Java Message Service (JMS) or processing by Java components. It connects a work item that is requesting a component to the appropriate service adapter:
Places messages on the JMS Queue and dispatches the associated work item. The JMS Adapter handles posting of Process events to a message queue. The posting is in the form of an XML event based on the step element for the operation.
You can create and configure the queues that are necessary for your Java or JMS components.
The following figure illustrates the Component Integrator architecture:
For development instructions, see Developing Component Integrator-Based Work Performers.
How Component Integration WorksA component step is a component that was created as a step in a workflow. When a running workflow has a work item that reaches a component step, the Component Integrator automatically does the following actions:
Component Integrator can update work items values automatically. In contrast, updating data field values with ordinary custom step processors is not automatic. It requires explicit Process Java API calls.
A daemon-based work performer can be used to perform all normal operations that are associated with a workflow step. In contrast, the scope of work for a Component Integrator-based work performer is all operations in a workflow. An example of the use of a daemon-based work performer is obtaining Step operations from a queue. (Unlike the Component Integrator-based Work Performer, you must specify polling).
You can build a custom daemon-based work performer by using the Process Java API. For this information, see Developing Daemon-Based Work Performers.