In the previous chapter, we worked with the REST API provided by Activiti to implement and execute our business process. In this chapter, we will integrate various third-party tools with our Activiti Engine.
In this chapter, we will go through the following topics:
- Using the Liferay Portal with Activiti (http://www.liferay.com/)
- Integrating business rules (Drools Expert) with Activiti (http://www.jboss.org/drools/drools-expert.html)
- Deploying Activiti as an OSGi bundle (http://www.OSGi.org/Main/HomePage)
So far, we just focused on executing process definitions using the Activiti process engine. Now, let’s say there’s a requirement to manage the documents in Alfresco using Activiti; therefore, we will need to integrate them.
To start using Activiti with the Liferay Portal, we need to understand what a portal is and what the Liferay Portal is. So, we will first discuss portals, then the Liferay Portal, and finally, integrate Activiti with Liferay.
A portal is where we can get information on various different topics from a single location. In the web world, a web portal refers to a website that offers access to various services, such as search results for other websites, and information regarding finance, health, the weather, and so on. The difference between a website and a web portal is that a web portal can store large volumes of data whereas a website can store only limited quantities of data. An example of a web portal is www.yahoo.com, where we can access various kinds of information, including the latest news, the weather, finance, and so on.
Liferay is a web-based Java portal. Using Liferay, we can establish a portal on various platforms, such as the web platform, a web content management (WCM) system, the Integration platform, the Collaboration platform, or the Social platform. In this section, we will use Liferay-6.1 to implement our workflow. To do so, we will use Activiti.