Category: News

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Imixs-Cloud – a Lightweight Docker Swarm Environment

The Imixs-Project started the new subproject Imixs-Cloud.

Imixs-Cloud is a conceptual infrastructure project, describing a way to create a server environment for business applications. One of the main objectives of this project is to focus on simplicity and transparency. The general idea is to setup a lightweight docker based infrastructure with docker swarm. Within this infrastructure business applications like Imixs-Office-Workflow can be deployed in a fast and easy way.
Imixs-Cloud is developed as part of the Open Source project Imixs-Workflow and continuous under development. To contribute to this project please report any issues here. All source are available on Github.

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Imixs-Workflow 4.2 Released

With version 4.2.0, the second minor release of Imixs-Workflow version 4 is now available. After the stability and performance improvements of version 4 were confirmed with the minor update 4.1, now the first feature update has been released. Imixs-Workflow 4.2 offers a number of additional features and technical improvements.

BPMN Modelling

Version 4.2 offers some awesome new possibilities to model a business process with BPMN 2.0. This includes, for example, the modeling of conditional events. A conditional event can be used to evaluate the output of an event during the processing life-cycle. The conditions can be easily added into the output flows.

conditional events

The business rules can be written in JavaScript or any script language supported by the JVM. E.g ’JavaScript or ‘Groovy’.

Another modelling improvement are the so called “Split-Events”. A Split-Event can be used to create new versions of the current process instance during the current processing life-cycle.

split event

A Split-Event creates a new version of the current process instance that can be immediately processed in parallel or stored in an archive state.

These new functions make modeling business processes more transparent and clearer.

The CDI Observer Pattern

The Imixs-Workflow engine provides now an observer pattern based on a set of CDI events. The events are fired when a process instance is loaded or updated. The observer pattern is part of the Java Enterprise Specification and can be used to adapt the behavior of workflow functionality in a powerful way. For example, the new archive feature adapts the persistence mechanism of Imixs-Workflow to transparently archive business data into various external archive systems.

Simulation & Testing

The project provides now a new Simulation Engine to be used to simulate the outcome of a concrete process instance based on a BPMN 2.0 model. This can be used in test- as also in production mode and enhances the test functionality of Imixs-Workflow. A lot additional improvements in JUnit tests are also part of this update.

All these additional functions increase the stability of Imixs-Workflow and allow developers the creation of highly scalable business applications. Find all release notes on GitHub.

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JSON Web Token and JASPIC

The Imixs Project started a new JSON Web Token project called Imixs-JWT.

Imixs-JWT is a compact easy to use library to generate and verify JSON Web Tokens. The library is based on maven and can be add with the following dependency available from Maven Central:

<dependency>
 <groupId>org.imixs.jwt</groupId>
 <artifactId>imixs-jwt</artifactId>
 <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

The following example shows how to build a JWT in Java:

import org.imixs.jwt.*;
import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;

...
// We need a signing key...
SecretKey secretKey = HMAC.createKey("HmacSHA256", "secret".getBytes());
String payload="{\"sub\":\"1234567890\",\"name\":\"John Doe\",\"admin\":true}";
JWTBuilder builder = new JWTBuilder().setKey(secretKey).setJSONPayload(payload);
System.out.println("JWT=" + builder.getToken());

// will result in:
// eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.
// eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiYWRtaW4iOnRydWV9.
// TJVA95OrM7E2cBab30RMHrHDcEfxjoYZgeFONFh7HgQ

JASPIC Auth Module for JWT

The project also provides a JASPIC authentication module. JASPIC is an authentication standard and can be used in Java EE application servers. The module was tested with Wildfly 10 and can be used also with different application servers.

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Imixs Joins the Java EE Guardians

The Imixs Software Solutions GmbH and the Open Source projekt Imixs-Workflow has joined the Java EE Guardians.

The Java EE Guardians is an independent group of people interested in moving Java EE forward. The purpose of this group is advocacy, raising awareness, finding solutions, collaboration and mutual support. We believe that together – including Oracle – we can prove that this is the dawn of a new era for an ever brighter future for Java, Java EE and server-side computing.

The Imixs-Workflow project supports the Java EE Guardians with a series of articles about the Java Enterprise Architecture. We published a new architectural approach to control a complex business process within a Microservice architecture running on the Java EE Stack.

The Imixs-Workflow project has evolved over several years and has been following the Java EE standard from the beginning. As a result, we were able to work with a stable code base and benefit directly from a multitude of modern software concepts. Some code of the Imixs-Workflow project has not changed over the years, other code was simplified by introducing new and modern language concepts within the Java EE platform. This will enable developers, community members and our customers to benefit from the sustainable and modern Java EE platform.

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Email Templates with Imixs-Workflow

With the latest release of Imixs-Workflow the open source workflow engine supports now Email Templates. With this new feature the email output can be based on a XSL Template. This opens up a powerful way to configure the mail content of more complex e-mail messages during the lifecycle of a business process.

Email Templates

The new template mode can be easily configured using the Imixs-BPMN Modeling Tool by putting a valid XSL document into the mail body definition. The template will be processed automatically with the XML representation of the current workitem.

See the following XSL Template example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
 <xsl:output method="html" media-type="text/html" indent="no"
 encoding="ISO-8859-1" />
 <xsl:template match="/">
  <html>
    <body>
     <h1>Welcome</h1>
     <h2>
       <xsl:value-of select="document/item[@name='txtname']/value" />
     </h2>
    </body>
  </html>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Imixs-Workflow supports the BPMN 2.0 standard and is build up on the Java EE specification. For that reason, it is easy to connect the open source workflow engine with a mail host in various ways. Open Source Mail servers as also Microsoft Exchange are supported. Find more details about the Imixs-MailPlugin in the plugin section of the project documentation.

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New Release – Imixs-BPMN Report 1.4.6

The new version 1.4.6 of the Imixs-BPMN Plugin is released. The new release includes bugfixes and enhancements. The Imixs-BPMN Report Plugin which is part of the Imixs-BPMN modelling tool now provides a new feature to directly include the content of a XSL file into a report definition:

Imixs-BPMN Report 1.4.6

Reports allow the extraction of information from a Imixs-Workflow instance. Imixs-Workflow provides a flexible REST-API to customize the output of a report. This includes the XSL Transformation. With this feature, workflow information can be transformed in any kind of output, like XML, JSON and also different document formats like PDF or MS-Word or MS-Excel.

The workflow business suite Imixs-Office-Workflow includes a management dashboard with different char diagrams to visualize relevant business process data.

Imixs-Office-Workflow with Imixs-BPMN Report 1.4.6

Imixs-BPMN is based on the Eclipse BPMN2 Project. The installation guide for Imixs-BPMN can be found here.

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Imixs-Workflow 4.0 released!

These days, the open source project Imixs-Workflow has released the latest major version 4.0.1.

The new release includes a number of improvements concerning performance and stability. Version 4.0. is now based on Java 8 and can be run with any Java EE 7 application server. In addition to a long list of improvements, the Lucene search engine technology is now fully integrated into the Imixs-Workflow engine. Thus, the open source framework provides much more flexibility in data access and allows a faster integration into existing business solutions.

Imixs-BPMN

Also the BPMN modeling tool Imixs-BPMN has been improved in the wake of the new release. The Eclipse BPMN2 plug-in enables the process analyst to document and describe workflows based on the BPMN 2.0 standard. These kind of models can be executed by Imixs-Workflow immediately without the need of a redeployment or code changes. Also, business rules can be modeled as part of a workflow, so even complex business processes can be described in a model.

Imixs-Workflow 4.0

The Imixs Open Source Project is hosted on GitHub with a large number of extensions and tools to be used to integrate the workflow engine into individual business applications. Thus Imixs-Workflow offers an enormous potential for software companies and large software projects in terms of agility and cost reduction. With the support of the BPMN 2.0 standard the business processing an application can be changed easily at runtime and without extensive refactoring or code changes.

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Open Source Workflow Engine on the IT & Business Trade Fair 2016

This year, the Imixs Software Solutions GmbH presents the latest major release of the open source workflow engine Imixs-Workflow 4.0.0 at the IT & Business Trade Fair.

ITB_15_W_027_gr-200x300
Bildnachweis Messe Stuttgart

Imixs-workflow is a so called “human-centric workflow engine”. Human-centric BPM means to support human skills and activities by a task orientated workflow-engine. The Imixs-Workflow project provides a powerful framework for the development of human-centric business applications. Imixs-Workflow can control, monitor and optimize any kind of business process between employees, customers and suppliers. This topic is currently also well known under the headline “Social Collaboration”. In contrast to a simple ad-hoc workflow approach, Imixs-Workflow allows the development of professional business applications and the integration of business process management into existing IT architectures. Imixs-Workflow also follows the approach of a microservice architecture and can for example be run easily in a docking container.

The new release includes significant improvements in performance and stability. Which a new database schema and the integration of the Lucene-search technology, the Imixs-Workflow engine is now much faster and can be easily integrated in custom software projects. With the Eclipse-based modelling tool ‘Imixs-BPMN‘ a business process can be developed according to a model-driven software development approach. Changes in the business logic or in the business process itself can be deployed at run time. This leads to a significant reduction of development cycles in an agile software development environment.

For software companies and larger projects, Imixs-Workflow shows a huge potential for improvements in the area of agility and cost reduction. With the support for BPMN 2.0, business logic can be changed easily and without costly re-factoring. The Imixs Software Solutions GmbH supports companies in the development and implementation of workflow solutions and offers also training and individual workshops.

The new version is expected to be released finally in September 2016. The open source project is available on GitHub, and provides a lot of examples and modules. Visitors of the IT & Business Trade Fair can inform themselves between Oct. 04.-06. in Stuttgart. Discussions about Imixs-Workflow can be made together with workflow experts at booth 1G33.2.

6064633_29_08_16-300x250IT & Business, DMS EXPO and CRM-Expo are merging to form a single event: the new IT & Business. Under one brand and under the roof of the largest hall at the Stuttgart Trade Fair, exhibitors will show how companies can work more efficiently, simply, safely and economically by means of optimising their operational processes.

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Version 4.0.0 anounced!

The next major release of Imixs-Workflow 4.0.0 is already under development and will be released soon. The new version represents a significant improvement in performance and stability. One of the major improvements is the new database schema as well as the integration of the Lucene Search Technology. At the same time, we will also re-factor the service layer which will simplify the usage of Imixs-Workflow for most projects.

For software companies and larger projects, Imixs-Workflow can be a huge improvement in changeability and cost reduction for the development of enterprise business applications. The BPMN 2.0 standard and the Imixs-BPMN modeler allows to change business logic during runtime and simplifies the way to maintain complex business applications.

The new release which is now in a test stage will be released in September 2016. You can join the project on GitHub.

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