Exposing client-side human services

In addition to implementing activities in a business process definition (BPD) or a case type, other people can use the client-side human services that you create in IBM® Process Designer to create custom dashboards for IBM Process Portal or instance user interfaces for case instances. Or they can be exposed as URLs.

To expose a client-side human service, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Process Designer desktop editor.
2. Open the client-side human service that you want to expose and then click the Overview tab.
3. In the Exposing section, in the Expose as list, specify the exposure type by selecting one of the following options.

   Table 1. Exposing options

   Option	Description
   Do Not Expose (Service contained in a BPD or case type)	Use this default option for client-side human services that implement activities within a BPD or a case type. When this option is selected, the Expose to start setting is disabled.
   Startable Service (Launched from Process Portal)	Use this option to enable members of the selected team to start the client-side human service from the Launch sidebar in Process Portal.
   Dashboard (Available in the Process Portal Dashboards menu)	Use this option to make the client-side human service available in Process Portal to members of the selected team. Team members can access the dashboard by clicking the Organize tabs icon and selecting the dashboard from the list of hidden pages. If you do not specify a localization resource for the dashboard name, the dashboard page has the same name as the exposed service. If you defined a localization resource for your dashboard name, click Select next to the Label field and select the key in the resource. See Globalizing dashboard names. If the client-side human service is in a toolkit, you must complete the following steps: Create a snapshot of the toolkit. Activate the toolkit snapshot. See Activating snapshots for use with IBM Process Portal Add the toolkit snapshot as a dependency to a process application. See Creating, changing, and deleting a toolkit dependency in the Designer view.
   URL (Available from a URL)	Use this option to make the service available from a URL address. For information about the REST API that provides the URL for the exposed service, see REST Interface for BPD-related Resources - Exposed Items Resource. For fast access, the URL is displayed as a link that you can either click or copy and paste into your web browser. To copy the URL, right-click the link and select the option provided by your browser to copy the URL (for example, Copy Link Location in Mozilla Firefox or Copy link address in Google Chrome).
   Do Not Expose (Instance details UI for a BPD or case type)	Use this option to indicate that the client-side human service cannot be exposed because it implements an instance details user interface that is used for a process instance or case instance. When you create the BPD or case type and create the details user interface under Details UI in the Views folder, you also create the client-side human service that implements the user interface for the specified process or case instance. When this option is displayed for a client-side human service, the Expose as and Expose to start settings in the Overview folder are disabled. The exposure of this client-side human service is determined only by the settings in the Views folder of the corresponding BPD or case type.

   For client-side human services, the URL can include the following additional parameters.

   Remember: Any browser-specific URL limitations, such as the URL length and character restrictions, apply when a client-side human service is called as a URL.

   Input variables

   In the URL, input variables that are defined for the service have the following format:

   &tw.local.variableName=value

   Date/Time syntax

   The date and time format differs between client-side human services and heritage human services. The syntax for the other simple types (String, Integer, Decimal, Selection) is the same for client-side human services and heritage human services.

   Note: For information about the date and time syntax in exposed heritage human services, see Exposing heritage human services.

   For client-side human services, the date and time format is specified by a profile of the ISO-8601 standard, as defined by RFC3339.

   • The Date format is YYYY-MM-DD.
   • The Time format is [hh]:[mm]:[ss], where
     • [hh] specifies a zero-padded hour between 00 and 24 (where 24 indicates midnight at the end of a calendar day).
     • [mm] specifies a zero-padded minute between 00 and 59.
     • [ss] specifies a zero-padded second between 00 and 60 (where 60 indicates an added leap second).
     For example, the time might be displayed as 13:47:30.
   • Note the following time zone designators for Time:
     • If no UTC relation information is given with a time representation, the time, <time>, is assumed to be the local time. The <time>Z parameter refers to UTC time. For example, 14:45:15 UTC can be 14:45:15Z.
     • The following parameters are time zone offsets from UTC time:

       <time>±hh:mm
       <time>±hhmm
       <time>±hh

       For example, the following times refer to the same moment: 18:30Z, 22:30+04, 1130-0700, and 15:00-03:30.
   • The combined Date and Time format is <date>T<time>, for example 2007-04-05T14:30Z or 2007-04-05T12:30-02:00.

4. Click Select next to Expose to start to choose the team whose members can view and use the exposed service. To create a team, click New. To remove an assigned team, click the X icon next to New.