| Forms Designer |
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Does Forms Designer require a separate Skelta database to store the data? Is it proprietary? Does it require a separate machine?
It does not require any proprietary Skelta database. We have a database which is automatically created for every repository that is created inside Skelta . So essentially there are set of tables if you want to create in your own application database, you could run scripts & extend application database for that. We also provide scripts with which you can create additional tables.
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Is vertical designing possible in Forms Designer?
Yes, this is possible with various levels of layouts
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How to define what columns should appear in Skelta List?
Columns to be displayed in Skelta list are configurable in List Designer.
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Is it required to have a physical database table to create a form or would Skelta tables suffice the purpose?
For production environment we recommend using entity specific tables. The steps for mapping a list with tables are straight forward and simple. Entity specific table also help easy reporting, scalability.
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Does Forms Designer have an embedded print control and/or an export to pdf option?
A custom activity can be added as part of the workflow to generate pdf or word document. This is not available as out of the box feature.
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Is it possible to maintain versions in Forms Designer?
Yes, versioning is available in the form of Major version (1, 2, and 3), Minor version (1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1). Workflow can be associated to a specific version.
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| Security |
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How to define different access levels for any processes? / How to restrict other users from modifying the processes?
Skelta allows security at process folder level, process level, workflow level & activity level. Application level, List level, list item level and within Process Designer in the activity property level. Same could be extended to BAM console.
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Is it ok to use existing roles within Skelta to set and manage security for the application?
Yes, the existing roles and infrastructure can be mapped to Skelta Security group.
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Does Skelta provide API's to access and configure the security?
Yes, extensive API's are available to manage security programmatically.
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| Process Designer |
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How can a business user model Business Processes for developer implementation?
Skelta Process Designer provides web-based process modeling and deployment capabilities. The Visio like interface for Process Designer enables the process modeling, process designing and process execution elements to be defined on a collaborative platform. A business user models his processes using BPMN elements available within BPM.NET Process Designer and submits it to the developer to map the activities and automate the process.
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How is application level data accessed from within the process?
Application level data can be passed as content, variable, XML, SOA (Skelta Object Access Layer) & as event data.
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Can I store and reuse the workflow designs to create other workflows?
Yes, workflow templates are stored by exporting the Process definition in the XML format. These templates can be imported and published to reuse the processes /create other workflows.
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Is versioning supported on the Process Definition?
Yes, Skelta BPM supports versioning on the Process Definition.
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What is the level of security within Process Designer?
Extensive security is available to restrict / grant rights to access Process Designer to modify an existing process and to republish. Options to restrict access to properties of activity level are also available.
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| Engine |
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Is there functionality to add escalation and alerts? Can these be customized?
Yes, all Human Workflow Services (HWS) activities like Invoke Forms, Approvals, and CheckList etc have options to send out time-bound alerts which can be configured. Escalations can be in the form of Task, email, SMS, Voice and custom code to implement custom business logic.
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How can I check for errors during the Workflow execution? How are errors handled?
All the errors during runtime are handled by the engine. The same can be monitored using
Activity Outputs: The-out-of-the-box Skelta activities come with outputs for handling most common exceptional situations like Resource Not Found, List Not Found and List Item not found. The same can be used at design stage to handle the exceptional situations
Logger console: The messages are categorized based on the type of error. Log console displays, messages which are of type information, warnings and Exceptions. The same can be tracked to handle the errors
As emails: Skelta is equipped with Notification services which are capable of sending emails on exceptions. The same needs to be configured using Skelta Farm Configuration Wizard
BAM control: Categorized reports based on the status of the workflow allow the Administrator/s to resume or abort the workflows
Event Viewer: All the exceptions and Warnings are added to the Event Viewers with complete details under, "Application" section
Visual Studio: Use the standard Visual Studio debugging techniques for Custom code.
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Does Skelta BPM have a retry mechanism in cases of errors / failures?
Yes, Skelta engine can retry executing activities on failure /error. The number of retries and the frequency is configurable in Skelta Farm Configuration Wizard.
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| Reports |
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What are the standard reports available with Skelta BPM?
Some of the reports which Skelta BPM has are process related reports, Reports on workflow instances, activity details and transaction based reports. Reports could be data based or graphical.
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How do I generate reports for Skelta List data?
Skelta list infrastructure uses Database such as SQL Server and Oracle. We can use any standard reporting tools to generate the reports.
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Does Skelta BPM support customization of KPI's?
Yes, Key Performance Indicators can be configured for a process, and can be used to analyze the workflow or application. To set up KPI's select the "BAM Configuration" option from the Settings menu in Process Designer. We have the option to configure the KPI, alerts and get alerts in the form of workflow, email etc.
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What does it take to build Custom Reports?
Skelta BPM provides extensive API's to build and customize reports. These APIs could be utilized to build / customize reports.
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How can I monitor the status of the initiated workflows?
Skelta BAM Control has out-of-the-box reports for viewing workflows in, "Executing State, Aborted State, Completed State, Finished State and also Finished with Errors state".
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Can I use BAM Control to resume a workflow which has been marked as Finished with Errors?
Yes, the Process Execution View Report of the BAM control has the option to resume the workflows which are in Finished with Errors state.
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Is it possible to restrict the access to reports based on users and roles?
Yes, Skelta BAM Control is equipped with Security features which enable the Administrator/s to configure the security access specific to any reports based on users / roles.
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| Database |
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Where does Skelta BPM store the data?
Skelta BPM stores information in SQL or Oracle database
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Is there a fail-safe mechanism for backup and recovery of process state data
All the workflow execution and the activity data are stored in the database and we can use the standard database maintenance procedure.
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| Administration |
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How do administrators monitor and administer the workflows in Skelta BPM?
The centralized location in the form of "Enterprise Console" enables the administrator to monitor all workflow related activities under a specific application such as viewing reports, workflow associations, security configuration etc.
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Can I access administration functionality through framework (API)?
Yes, Skelta BPM has extensive API's to access the administration functionality.
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Is it possible to query running/completed process data through API or directly through Database Queries?
Yes.
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Where is the process data stored?
All the workflow executions and their details are stored in the database. The status of the workflow can be obtained by using Skelta provided API's or by querying the tables.
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| API |
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Does Skelta BPM have a robust framework (API) to interact with Process Data and also with Skelta Lists?
Skelta BPM provides extensive APIs which facilitates the interaction with process data i.e. the data which is part of the workflow and also for accessing Skelta List infrastructure.
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Can functionalities like reassignment of tasks to different users / groups be accessed through the API?
Yes.
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Is there a robust and complete API that allows programmatic access to all of the workflow administration functions in Skelta BPM?
Yes, the workflows can be initiated, switched to sleep mode and re-initiated through an API. The status engine shall provide the status of all the workflow executing.
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Can we act on an activity through an API?
Yes, it is possible to act on an assigned task using APIs. By providing relevant data, it is possible to retrieve the entire information related to any activity context in Skelta BPM.
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| Embedding Skelta Controls to Existing Applications |
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Does Skelta BPM support themes?
Yes, Skelta BPM supports themes that allow the user to change the look and feel of the user interface. You can also build your own themes.
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Is it possible to localize the text in BPM.NET user Interface?
Yes, the UI Culture for the application must be changed according to the preferred language. Locales folder with default locale "en-US" is stored during BPM.NET installation.
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Is it possible to embed Skelta Process Designer within .NET Application?
All Skelta controls are 100% embeddable and web-based. Out-of-the-box server controls available in Skelta BPM can either be dragged and dropped from the visual studio toolbox or instantiated to be loaded to a web control container in the application. Following are the out-of-the-box Skelta Server Controls
- Process Designer Controls
- Workitem list controls
- Calendar controls
- BAM controls
- Queue controls
- List controls
- Workflow executing report controls
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What is an integration layer and how does this help me in integrating 3rd party applications?
The Integration layer acts as an interface between Skelta BPM and third-party applications. The various objects within the Integration layer include:
Entity Infrastructure
Entity Infrastructure is used to manage users across different platForms. An Entity has two categories-User Entity and Role Entity. A User Entity manages all the information for the users across different data sources. A Datasource can be an active directory, an SQL provider, SharePoint users or more. A Role entity manages users in roles.
Web Services
Skelta BPM provides out-of-the-box activities that can be used to call a third-party Web Service from a workflow.
Skelta Object Access
This object allows reuse of third-party .NET objects in Skelta BPM thus avoiding custom coding. Skelta BPM allows registration of third-party object assemblies.
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| Miscellaneous Questions |
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Do I need to retain the set of tables that Skelta BPM Engine uses?
Yes, various information like the workflows designed, activities to be executed, different properties set for each activity etc., are stored in Skelta BPM engine related tables.
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Can I use Skelta with WinForms?
Yes, Skelta BPM controls are web server controls which can be dragged and dropped on to ASPX pages. These controls can be used in WinForms by loading the web pages in WinForms.
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Is it possible to have Web UI's incorporating SSL?
Skelta BPM does not provide authentication, it has to be implemented in the application specific manner. The Web UI is provided in the form of Web Controls and can be easily incorporated with https.
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Is it possible to access Current Task Data i.e., Task responses?
Yes, Skelta BPM provides API for accessing all human activity responses and outputs.
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Is it possible to call custom assemblies to implement server-side processes?
Yes.
Custom Action: All the activities implement the IActionRun interface. The assembly and the class name for these activities can be configured in the actions.xml file.
SOA: The ability to register .NET assemblies into the SOA list
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What do you mean by the term concurrent workflows? Can you illustrate an appropriate example?
The term concurrent workflows refers to the simultaneous processing of multiple instances of one or more workflows. The multiple processes may belong to the same workflow or to different workflows. The following example illustrates concurrent workflows.
Example:
ABC, Inc. has deployed two workflows - one for Employee Leave Management and the other for Expense Claims. The Employee Leave Management workflow commences with the submission of a leave request. Jack Smith, the companys accountant enters a leave request. While his leave request is being processed, he also submits an expense claim. Skelta BPM is now processing two workflows concurrently.
Jacks leave application has been approved and his expense claim is awaiting the approval of his manager. Hence number of workflow instances is one. Jacks colleague, Mary now fills out her expense claim form. The number of concurrent workflows is two, even though Jack and Marys requests trigger the same workflow for Expense Claims.
The maximum number of concurrent workflows that Skelta will process depends on the product license. For instance, the Unlimited Server license of Skelta does not impose any restrictions on the number of concurrent workflows. However, for all types of licenses, there are no restrictions on the number of users or the number of process definitions that can be created.
If the number of instances of workflows being processed reaches the maximum number of concurrent workflows, and a user initiates a new workflow, Skelta will automatically send emails to the administrator and the user of that workflow informing them that it is unable to process the new request as the limit has been reached.
Please note that the workflows initiated when the maximum limit is reached are not queued. The administrator has to inform the user to re-initiate the process after the number of workflows has been brought under the allowed limit.
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