Presentation given at the T44U 2013 conference. The presentation covers the work at the University of Bristol on the Prospectus Editing Tool (PET) and the experiences of using the T4 API.

1. Prospectus Editing Tool (PET)
Mike Jones (mike.a.jones@bristol.ac.uk)
IT Services R&D / ILRT
Using emerging learning and research technologies to enable excellence

2. Overview
• The drivers and opportunities of the Prospectus project
• The rationale for developing PET
• How we use the TERMINALFOUR Site Manager API in
PET
• The pros and cons of our approach
• Experiences of using the TERMINALFOUR Site Manager
API
IT Services R&D / ILRT

3. What is PET?
A workflow-driven web application for collating, editing and
approving content for the undergraduate and postgraduate
prospectuses.
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4. Content for Web …
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5. … and Print …
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6. … all stored in Site Manager
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7. We needed to replace old software
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bogdansuditu/2377842887
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8. Opportunity to review processes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/videolux/2389320345/
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9. Why develop PET?
• Reluctance to train ~100 academics and faculty staff in
using Site Manager for just prospectus content
• Needed to control access to content via roles
(Editor, Faculty Reviewer, Print Reviewer and Prospectus
Administrator) that didn‟t fit with Site Manager roles
• Wanted a robust standards-based workflow engine
• A request for „simplified editing screens‟
IT Services R&D / ILRT

10. Architecture
Site Manager
PET
Custom tag brokers
Workflow
DB
PET DB
CMS DB
Data
Warehouse
IT Services R&D / ILRT

11. Core Technology for PET
• Spring Framework (http://spring.io)
• Spring MVC
• Spring Security
• Activiti BPM Platform (http://www.activiti.org)
• MyBatis (http://github.com/mybatis)
• Ehcache (http://ehcache.org)
• TERMINALFOUR Site Manager API
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12. Content is abstracted to Domain Objects
• Web application passes around domain model
objects that represent people, programmes,
faculties, subjects etc
• For Site Manager content an object is made of a
Section + Metadata + Content
• Implemented mappings from variables in the Java
objects to Site Manager content via custom
annotations
• Support a subset of types – plain text, numbers, list
(not sub-lists), content links …
IT Services R&D / ILRT

13. Mapping Content
@SectionID
private Integer id;
@ContentField(“UCAS code”)
private String ucasCode;
@ContentID
private Integer contentId;
@ContentField(“Award”)
private String award;
@VersionField
private String version;
@MetadataField(“keywords“)
private String keywords;
IT Services R&D / ILRT

14. Support for the web view
• Validators check with
the CMS for mandatory
fields
• Get list values
• Show field names and
descriptions (can be
overridden)
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15. Workflow
• Activiti BPM Platform
• Support BMN 2.0
• Design the workflow
with an Eclipse plugin
• Java and a REST API
• Supports different tasks –
Email, Script, Business
Rule etc
IT Services R&D / ILRT

16. Progress
• Still a work in progress
• Currently being used by Undergraduate Recruitment
• Soon to be released to Postgraduate Recruitment
• Undergraduate prospectus will be published in February
2014 (I still need to write some Custom Brokers)
• Positive feedback from academics. Student Recruitment
positive but have lots of suggestions for improvement.
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17. Pros and cons of our approach
• Flexible system that can adapt to the needs of Student
Recruitment
• Benefit from the advantages of Site Manager while
providing an easy-to-use interface for the academics
• Powerful workflow that can be adapted to changing
business processes
• BUT … the heavy use of the Site Manager API means we
cannot update our CMS until PET is fully tested against
new versions of Site Manager
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18. Experiences of using the Site Manager
API
• We have used the API for:
• The development of PET
• The migration of Plone content to Site Manager
• Populating users and groups in Site Manager from
LDAP
It is very powerful!
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19. Documentation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53326337@N00/3820645253
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20. Should you avoid parts of the API?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robwatling/5059689668/
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21. Pass a Connection or a Statement?
• Initially surprised that you deal with JDBC objects directly
but we embraced it 
• Decided to pass in a Statement rather than a Connection
so we can ensure the Statement was closed
• You can‟t always pass in a Statement; some API calls
query the database but don‟t even require a Connection
...
• … which ties you to the SM Connection pool
implementation
IT Services R&D / ILRT

22. Bits and bobs
• More examples needed
• No notes on API changes in the release notes
• Not trivial to setup a development environment – I use
maven overlays to make my life easier
• Support for transactions?
• Cache – not able to notify the Site Manager cache that a
remote application has added or modified content.
• No support for repository standards – JSR-170 / JSR-283
or CMIS
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23. Questions? 
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