Process flows have traditionally been used as a design tool to help visually represent functional steps in a business process. Each piece of functionality is broken down into granular steps to create a visual diagram of a process.
Traditional object-oriented application design normally encapsulates business logic and process flow details in business logic components, such as .NET assemblies. These objects define the business logic and process flows for complex operations such as taking an order, creating a Persons record, or batching transactions to the General Ledger. If modifications to business logic or process are required at a later date, a programmer is normally needed to implement the changes.
The Aptify Process Pipeline infrastructure provides an organization with the ability to define and modify business logic and process flow through the use of an intuitive graphical user interface. All functionality within Aptify's business applications are delivered in the form of logical components, which are combined into process flows and associated with events throughout the application. The Aptify Process Pipeline architecture provides the ability to define extremely granular components that perform very specific actions. These components are then combined to form complete process flows. Administrators with knowledge of the system may make these process flow modifications through the use of a graphical user interface rather than by writing code.
By allowing non-programmers to modify business logic, the system becomes much more flexible and changes may be completed in a shorter amount of time when compared to traditional solutions where programming is required to make any changes. In addition, the reduced need for programming reduces the total cost of ownership of the software, resulting in significant savings to the organization over the life of the system.
This topic describes Aptify's Process Pipeline functionality. This includes how to create and configure Process Flows and how to configure Event Handlers to execute Process Flows.
This topic covers the following sub-topics:
Aptify's Application Server and Scheduled Tasks features also make extensive use of the Process Pipeline functionality. Aptify recommends that clients interested in using an Application Server and Scheduled Tasks become familiar with Process Flows first (by reviewing this topic and the related sub-topics) and then proceed to review the information in Managing Scheduled Tasks.