Object Access

In a business environment, different softwares and processes are in place for varied business functions. Most of the information is interchange between software and departments. In certain cases, this information is manually incorporated in the software. This process is time consuming and prone to human errors. To make the environment fully automated, these software need to interact with each other.

AVEVA Work Tasks provide this facility through Integration Activities but the user is expected to know the respective area. The inbuilt security feature called SOA (AVEVA Work Tasks Object Access) enables the product to interact with other applications.

SOA allows users to use their existing .net assemblies with AVEVA Work Tasks’s built in security features. Only privileged users are authorized to access critical information.

To enable the feature, certain configuration needs to be done to the setup in AVEVA Work Tasks such as SOA Folders and SOA Assemblies. Also, one needs to instantiate a class in a workflow to use the methods and properties in workflow activities via the expression editor.

Configuration

SOA configuration consists of SOA repository registration such as SOA Folders and SOA Assemblies. In SOA Folders, users can register a path or folder which consists of assemblies and reference assemblies.

Existing .net assembly methods or properties can be used in AVEVA Work Tasks by following a few steps. First register the Folder in which the assembly resides, and then register the methods or properties using Assemblies. Once the assembly is registered, the class will be available in AVEVA Work Tasks to create an instance. Once the instance is created, the method and properties etc will be available using the expression editor and SOA activities.

In SOA assemblies, users can register an assembly from a registered folder or from System GAC. Registered assembly methods can be accessed in AVEVA Work Tasks, using the following SOA features:

Features

In the SOA feature, you use an existing .NET object directly inside a workflow to specify business logic or to access object properties. These features are light weight and are activated JIT when accessed. They are not serialized and hence do not add up to the workflow footprint and allow using high level Business objects for Decisions and Actions. They are integrated in expressions hence can be used to specify the runtime value of any of the properties in AVEVA Work Tasks.

• SOA in expression builder: SOA registered assembly methods can be accessed in the expression builder as normal functions. Users can choose and drop functions into the expression editor and can also supply parameters also from the tree view. The expression editor allows simple scripts as well as function calls. All the activities which have the expression editor interface will have SOA enabled.

• Others:

  • An SOA Assembly can be registered multiple times, with different method/parameter selection to use the AVEVA Work Tasks security features, expose methods/properties to different users based on security privileges.

  • SOA Static Objects - All static methods of registered assemblies will be listed to use as instance object.

  • Users can write scripts to make small business rules.

  • Users can even update variables which are defined in workflows.

Enterprise Server

In the Enterprise Server scenario, the assembly and its referenced assemblies that are registered should be on all servers.

Prerequisites

AVEVA Work Tasks has the following prerequisites:

• The registered assemblies should be on Server machines folder.