Migrating a LiveCycle Process from "Dev" to "Production" - Without Pain

Please click here for full reference on Global Variables DSC.

Using the Avoka Global Variables DSC

Scenario

How can we make it easier to migrate test business process onto the production server? We've all been there; having finally got it all working, and ironed out the endless bugs and refinements in the test environment we have to move the process from "TEST" to "PRODUCTION".

So we change the settings of process variables and process steps in order to cater for differences in database instances, LDAP instances, and we have make last minute changes to email addresses from those of analysts and testers to frontline staff. Next a series of change requests arrive from the end users, and we need to go through the process of changing these settings over and over. It's tedious, time consuming, and exposes us to the risk of forgetting to change one variable and breaking the whole thing.

The Global Variables DSC

The Global Variables DSC, by Avoka Technologies, is designed to allow processes to store and retrieve runtime or configuration data into the LiveCycle ES Server. In our case we will use it to lookup email addresses, and a reference to either the production or development database. This way we can "set and forget" these configurations, when migrating from test to production.

To obtain an evaluation copy of the Global Variables DSC go to the Avoka Website: http://www.avoka.com and follow the links.

The Global Variables Solution Component, once installed, will appear as a new service in your LiveCycle WorkBench.

For the purposes of this demonstration we will only use the "Get Global Variables" service.

The Process

As shown in the above Figure, there are two tasks "Configure" and "Notify HR". Once configured the task "Configure" will obtain an email address for the Human Resources department from the LiveCycle ES server and assign its value to a process variable "hrEmailAddress". This value is, in turn, used by the email task "Notify HR". For this to work we need to set some properties on these tasks...

Setting Properties on the Global Variable Getter

First we select task "Configure" and view the properties tab. Then we click the button "...", under "Input: Settings" (Left).

This will open the "Get Global Variables Setting" dialog (Left). As can be seen there are no global variables declared yet so we need to declare one.

Declaring a Global Variable

Now we need to declare a global variable for HR email address. Click the "Add..." button to create a new global variable.

This opens the new global variable dialog. For the test global variable we need to enter the data as shown (Right).

This will populate the "Get Global Variables Settings" dialog with a new row (Left).

Now enter in the test value for the global variable "hr_email" and press "Update Values".

Now the LiveCycle server has stored the global variable and its value.

Binding the Global Variable to the Local Variable

To assign the global variable to a process variable click on the "Get Settings" tab of the dialog box.

To create a new binding click on the "+" button. Enter in the local variable (which receives the global variable value) and select the global variable as shown.

NOTE: When deploying the process to the production server for the first time, remember to declare the global variable and its value again; but you will only need to do this once.