Calling JSP from an external / url task in a workflow

Hi All,

We are building a workflow for a client. Requirement is to show a form to the user, get the inputs, validate these inputs and then transition to next task. Earlier this was done in cgi and perl. Now i want to use JSP, JAVA code for the same.

In my opinion i should be able to call a url (http://server-name/iw-cc/jspname.jsp) from an external task which will actually be visible to the user. JSP will call JAVA to do the processing and will transition to next task as well.

Please let me know if my thinking is correct or what is the best way to achieve this.

I am pretty new to cssdk and try creating a JSP and put it under $IW_HOME/httpd/webapps/content_center and try calling it from external task but this did not work.

We are using Teamsite 6.7.1 on solaris 10.

Please help.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Bill Klish

Please read the user interface customization guide manual. You shouldn't be putting any jsps in that directory. Instead you should be updating the customer toolkit with your java and jsp customizations.

External tasks whether url or not will not show a user interface. Although they are called cgi tasks, that is what you need to use in your workflow and the url would be the link to your servlet/jsp.

dolly1

Hi Bill,

This is a great help. I did read the manual and tried using url command in the external task but this also did not work for me.

I followed the below mentioned steps:
I created a simple sample servlet which implments CSURLExternalTask interface.
Placed this servlet in customer_src/src folder.
Updated the web.xml entries to add this new servlet entry.
Ran make_toolkit.ip.

I can see that it got complied, customer.jar, customer.tk.war is updated and these contains my servlet class file and web.xml file as well.

My external task looks like

owner="__TAG__('iw_user');"
description="Let a user run the external program">

where $test_command is
my $test_command = "http://10.209.29.186/iw-cc/sampleservet";

web.xml entry is

SampleServlet

/sampleservlet

my CLASSPATH is
/apps/iw-home/tools/java/lib:/apps/iw-home/tools/java/bin:/apps/iw-home/CSSDK_Client/cssdk/axis.jar:/apps/iw-home/CSSDK_Client/cssdk/commons-discovery-0.2.jar:/apps/iw-home/cssdk/cssdkiface.jar:/apps/iw-home/cssdk/cssdksoap.jar:/apps/iw-home/cssdk/cssdkjni.jar:/apps/iw-home/CSSDK_Client/cssdk/jaxrpc.jar:/apps/iw-home/CSSDK_Client/cssdk/log4j.jar:/apps/iw-home/CSSDK_Client/cssdk/saaj.jar:/apps/iw-home/httpd/iw-bin

my LD_LIBRARY_PATH is

/apps/iw-home/cssdk:/apps/iw-home/lib:/apps/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/client_1/lib32:/apps/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/client_1/lib:/apps/iw-home/iw-webd/lib:/usr/local/ssl/lib:/usr/local/lib

When i trigger the workflow I jsut get the follwoing error in /apps/iw-home/local/logs/iwutild_cmdout.log

ERROR:00920: Object being looked up was not found

servletd.log or anyother log file does not log anything.

I am clueless why is this happening.
I would really appreciate if you can guide me further.

Env: TS6.7.1 on Solaris 10

P.S. Please find the attached file with the code snippets I pasted in the reply as that didn't come properly in the post.

Thanks a ton.

kg_brian

Shouldn't need to hardcode server address, you can just put /iw-cc/whatever....

Do you have the correct TLDS your JSP will need set up?

Not sure if you need to use a .do with your command, I have always used but I have always used struts or spring...

Migrateduser

Did you get this to work successfully? Even I have a similar requirement & I am stuck

artor

I think if your servlet is fine and running then you have to check the web.xml file in tomcat NOT the web-inf and check the invoker entry which must be comment so the remove the comment because there is a problem in your url because might be ur url is being searched http://10.209.29.186/iw-cc/servlet/sampleservet from this place.

Regards,
A

mdang

To ensure the urlexternal task is configed correctly, I think the first thing to check is if the web server receive this URL request: http://10.209.29.186/iw-cc/servlet/sampleservet. Look it up in the access.log.

The error in iwutild_cmdout log doesn't seem to be related to urlexternal task, cause there shouldn't be any Perl CLT code being called in this case.

--

Migrateduser

The thing with externalURL task is, once in the workflow, you click on say a "custom review" task button, it makes the call to the url (or servlet in this case) but takes me back to the TS home page. It never brings up a new browser window with my servlet in it.

ISCBorisB

The thing with externalURL task is, once in the workflow, you click on say a "custom review" task button, it makes the call to the url (or servlet in this case) but takes me back to the TS home page. It never brings up a new browser window with my servlet in it.

Please read post #2 in this thread. If you do not understand what Bill is saying try "TeamSite® Workflow Developer’s Guide"

mdang

The thing with externalURL task is, once in the workflow, you click on say a "custom review" task button, it makes the call to the url (or servlet in this case) but takes me back to the TS home page. It never brings up a new browser window with my servlet in it.

URL external task itself is not for user interaction. By definition, all "external" tasks will work and determine its task transition in the background. No UI element.

For user interactive workflow UI, you have 2 choices.

1. You can create an URL External task to send an email (with XSLT, this is a breeze) to the user's attention. In the email that the user receive, you can provide link(s) to your user interaction Servlet URL.

2. You can use CGI task to point to your servlet URL.

Option 1 is good for user interaction in the middle of a long workflow. Option 2 is good for user interaction in the beginning of a workflow.

Migrateduser

URL external task itself is not for user interaction. By definition, all "external" tasks will work and determine its task transition in the background. No UI element.

For user interactive workflow UI, you have 2 choices.

1. You can create an URL External task to send an email (with XSLT, this is a breeze) to the user's attention. In the email that the user receive, you can provide link(s) to your user interaction Servlet URL.

2. You can use CGI task to point to your servlet URL.

Option 1 is good for user interaction in the middle of a long workflow. Option 2 is good for user interaction in the beginning of a workflow.

Hi mDang,

Can you please tell me how to accomplish Option 2 using the workflow modeller? When I give the CGI Script Name an URL http://localhost/iw-cc/ADIDispatcher?opcode=reviewwf.. I get a CGI wrapper error..
In a java script pop window I get
TeamSite: Wrapper
Error: Error trying to open a pipe to

\.....\iw-bin\http: (1)

Thanks

mdang

Hi mDang,

Can you please tell me how to accomplish Option 2 using the workflow modeller? When I give the CGI Script Name an URL http://localhost/iw-cc/ADIDispatcher?opcode=reviewwf.. I get a CGI wrapper error..
In a java script pop window I get
TeamSite: Wrapper
Error: Error trying to open a pipe to \.....\iw-bin\http: (1)

Thanks

Which version of TeamSite are you using? If I remember correctly, TeamSite started to support arbitrary URL in a CGI task only recently (the last couple releases?). Before that, a CGI task can only take an actual CGI from http://server/iw-bin.

--

DhirajJha

Which version of TeamSite are you using? If I remember correctly, TeamSite started to support arbitrary URL in a CGI task only recently (the last couple releases?). Before that, a CGI task can only take an actual CGI from http://server/iw-bin.

--

Please see post #1. Askprits says it is TS 6.7.1 on Solaris 10.

Migrateduser

Please see post #1. Askprits says it is TS 6.7.1 on Solaris 10.

We are on 6.7.1 SP1 Patch 1 (recently upgraded)

mdang

Please see post #1. Askprits says it is TS 6.7.1 on Solaris 10.

Post #1 was by Dolly.

Askprits, so you are on the latest! Smiley Happy

I will search and find out the answer for you.

--

mdang

Which version of TeamSite are you using? If I remember correctly, TeamSite started to support arbitrary URL in a CGI task only recently (the last couple releases?). Before that, a CGI task can only take an actual CGI from http://server/iw-bin.

--

Looks like my assumption or belief is incorrect. Smiley Sad

TS has not supported arbitrary URL in CGI task yet. The current walk around is to put a bridging CGI under http://server/iw-bin to call your JSP or Servlet. Ex.

http://server/iw-bin/step_stone.pl?redirect_to=/iw-cc/customer/custom.jsp

--

Migrateduser

Looks like my assumption or belief is incorrect. TS has not supported arbitrary URL in CGI task yet. The current walk around is to put a bridging CGI under http://server/iw-bin to call your JSP or Servlet. Ex.

http://server/iw-bin/step_stone.pl?redirect_to=/iw-cc/customer/custom.jsp

--

You are right.. I was following up with a IW consultant & found out its not possible to directly invoke a URL from CGI task. Instead use a redirect perl/cgi script to call the servlet.

Thanks
Pritam J

13adam13

nevermind. Smiley Happy