Knowledge Base

The article presents how to expand the WEBCON BPS installation with new application servers to easily support the higher load and increase the availability and reliability of WEBCON BPS applications. Each subsequent WEBCON BPS application server requires an appropriate license. The WEBCON BPS Search Server component is an exception. The existing WEBCON BPS environment consists of two servers: application server working as BPS Portal, BPS Service, BPS Search Server, and SQL Server dedicated to WEBCON BPS applications - to ensure high availability, the instance should support this functionality.

Version 2021 has introduced a new feature for the environments in which there are many different people creating and modifying applications and processes. Now, you can define dedicated connections and data sources for your applications which should simplify the administration work. You will also avoid situations in which a person using a data source in one application modifies it without knowing that it may affect another application that also uses the same source.

Form rules for attachments in WEBCON BPS allow you to receive information about attachments added to the workflow instances, without the need to know the WFDataAttachments table structure and to use SQL queries. Form rules operating on attachments increase the wide range of form rules available for use in WEBCON BPS and allow for easier retrieval of information about attachments from the form level, without the need to know the WFDataAttachmets table, which stores information about attachments. Rules will be presented using the “Change value of single field” action which has been configured for each rule separately.

The ability to generate documents is one of the most frequently used actions in WEBCON BPS. By defining one template, e.g. a contract, using Microsoft Word, we can then use it to quickly generate contract documents.  In multilingual environments, it is possible to generate documents in multiple languages, where the template is replaced with the appropriate language automatically, without user intervention.

Electronic documents often contain barcodes that allow you to find the appropriate document in the system using a barcode scanner. The “Read a barcode” action is used to decrypt information saved in the barcode and transfer it to the WEBCON BPS form. The action supports a wide range of numeric and alphanumerical barcode standards such as Code 128, EAN-13, QR Code, UPC-E. The “Read a barcode” action allows you to read the barcode content from the attachment added to the process instance and enter it on the form. The wide range of barcode standards supported by the action makes it a universal tool.

This article describes the “Read data from an Excel file” action that allows you to import data from an Excel file to the form. It can be especially useful when the process requires entering many slightly different documents – thanks to this, you can quickly complete fields on the WEBCON BPS form. It also can be used when you do not want to create accounts and give access to internal company resources to external people. We have created the simple “Leave requests” workflow with the “Read data from an Excel file” action. It allows an employee (who temporarily does not have access to the company’s intranet) to submit a leave request.

Information about instances registered in WEBCON BPS is stored in the MS SQL database, and in Apache Solr indexes (allows for a quick search). While the system is running, activities such as registering a new instance, following a path, or saving an instance generate entries in the queue of elements to be saved in Solr. The WebCon WorkFlow Service is responsible for sending data to Apache Solr, which processes the queue of elements for indexing. The “SOLR indexer queue” report is available in the 'Reports' section in WEBCON BPS Designer Studio.

WEBCON BPS 2021 introduces the new SELECT VALUES function that allows you to retrieve data from a selected item list column. This function enables saving data from all rows of a given column in a form field indicated in the configuration. Data are saved as a collection separated by semicolons. The function ignores empty values. In this article, we will copy values from the item list to the “Approvers to notify” form field. In this field, we select people who will receive a notification about an instance to be approved.

The “Item list” form field is used to store any number of data rows organized into columns. In business practice, there is a need for the item list to be updated based on the values from other elements or updated automatically, and a user cannot edit it. For this purpose, you can use the “Change items list values” action which will be presented in this article based on the simple “Invoice approval” workflow. The "Change items list values" action is a useful tool that allows you to edit the value of the item list. The available three modes of this action provide full possibilities of automatic and configurable modification of the item list, without the participation of the user filling out the form.

The article presents two workflows - the first is used to plan absence by an employee, and the second to register absence requests (using wizard). A special workflow for creating absence plans allows the employee to plan the absence (e.g. at the beginning of the year), which will then appear on the Gantt chart. The second way is to use the absence workflow generated by the absence process wizard - in this case, the selected absence plans (e.g. not approved by the supervisor or vacation leave) will be displayed on the Gantt chart.