External Master Data in Alfresco: Integrating and Keeping Metadata Consistent Across Multiple Systems

1. External Master Data in Alfresco: Integrating and Keeping Metadata Consistent Across Multiple Systems Oksana Kurysheva @aviriel Alexey Vasyukov @avasyukov

2. Who are we? Oksana Kurysheva @aviriel Project Manager / Trainer / Queen of the bees ITD Systems / Order of the Bee Alexey Vasyukov @avasyukov Chief Architect / Alvex Product Manager ITD Systems

3. Questions for the next 39 minutes 1 What is Master Data? 2 3 4 Storing Master Data in Alfresco External Master Data Complicated cases 5 Conclusion

4. 1 What is Master Data? 2 3 4 Storing Master Data in Alfresco External Master Data Complicated cases 5 Conclusion

5. What is Master Data?

6. Master data management is an integration between Alfresco and a complex set of third-party systems, that you are to meet when trying to use Alfresco in the wild.

7. 1 What is Master Data? 2 3 4 Storing Master Data in Alfresco Integrating Alfresco with external Master Data Complicated cases Out of the box implementation Data-list based implementation 5 Conclusion 3.1 3.2

8. Constraints in the content model

9. Constraints in the content model Users can select a value from the list. + Master data changes quite frequently. Business users do not like the idea to call IT every time they need new option in the drop-down list. -

10. 1 What is Master Data? 2 Storing Master Data in Alfresco Out of the box implementation Data-list based implementation 3.1 3.2 3 4 Integrating Alfresco with external Master Data Complicated cases 5 Conclusion

11. Data-list based implementation (1/5) • Simple solution • Several extensions to do it: • Tony Parzgnat implementation https://github.com/parzgnat/alfresco-value-assistance • Angel Borroy implementation https://github.com/keensoft/alfresco-datalist-constraints • Alvex releases older 2.1

12. <appearance> <field id=“dm:color”> <control template=“/form-controls/dynamic-dropdown.ftl”> <control-param name=“pickListName”>Color</control- param> </control> </field> </appearance> Data-list based implementation (2/5)

13. Data-list based implementation (3/5)

14. Solves basic issue quickly •Business users can edit constraints in browser! Data-list based implementation (4/5)

15. Updating a list of values Performance Permissions Share-Tier No native constraint Still no sync with external Master Data - Data-list based implementation (5/5)

16. 1 What is Master Data? 2 3 Storing Master Data in Alfresco The Good The Bad 3.1 3.2 4 Complicated cases 5 Conclusion External Master Data

17. External Master Data Assumptions: • Master data is in 3rd party systems. • These systems have remote APIs. Let's query them for reference data.

18. Architectural Choice Share Tier vs Repo Tier

19. Architectural Choice: Share-tier

20. Architectural Choice: Share-tier <field id=“alvexdt:contract”> <control template=“/alvex-masterData-select.ftl”> <control-param name=“url”> http://www.alvexsoftware.com/files/contacts_sample.json </control-param> <control-param name=“path”></control-param> <control-param name=“label”>contactCompany</control-param> <control-param name=“value”>contactCompany</control-param> </control> </field>

21. Architectural Choice: Repo Tier

22. Architectural Choice: Repo Tier <constraint name="alvexdt:docStatus" type="com.alvexcore.repo.masterdata.MasterDataConstraint"> <parameter name="dataSourceName"> <value>Test</value> </parameter> </constraint>

23. 1 What is Master Data? 2 Storing Master Data in Alfresco 3 The Good The Bad 3.1 3.2 4 Complicated cases 5 Conclusion External Master Data

24. External Master Data Quite obvious idea becomes tricky: • Live data vs Cached data • Performance and bottlenecks • Changes in reference data

25. Dilemma: Live Data vs Cached Data Always actual Simple implementation Slow network Service is unavailable? Live Data May be outdated Complex implementation Fast Always available Cached Data

26. Performance • Constraint is expected to be extremely fast • Just reading field with list constraint with N values causes N+1 call to Constraint class. • Caching of classifiers in Repo is not enough.

27. Changes in Reference Data Update items Processing Updates Leave old value in existing fields Migrate existing fields to the new one Processing Deletion Allow creating new data from Alfresco Add new data

28. Implementation Details (1/5)

33. Changes in Reference Data Update items Processing Updates Leave old value in existing fields Migrate existing fields to the new one Processing Deletion Allow creating new data from Alfresco Add new data

34. External Master Data: Demo

35. 2 3 4 Storing Master Data in Alfresco External Master Data Complicated cases 4.1 4.2 Handling Tree-Like Structures Constraints Inter-Dependencies 4.3 One-To-Many Relations 5 Conclusion

36. Complicated Cases Reference data is complex IRL: • Tree-like hierarchies • Inter-dependencies of constraints • One-to-many mapping (one master data object to many content object properties)

37. Handing Tree-Like Structures

38. Handing Tree-Like Structures • Jean Barmash implementation (2008) https://forums.alfresco.com/comment/80963#co mment-80963

39. Constraints Inter-Dependencies

40. One-To-Many Relations

41. 1 What is Master Data? 2 3 4 Storing Master Data in Alfresco External Master Data Complicated cases 5 Conclusion

42. Fear and Loathing Under The Hood

43. Getting forms

44. Getting forms

45. Validations on Node Create/Edit

46. Validations on Node Create/Edit

47. Fear and Loathing Under The Hood: Summary Overloaded components: • /api/formdefinition • MasterDataAwareScriptFormService • MasterDataAwareIntegrityChecker • MasterDataAwarePropertiesIntegrityEvent

48. Roadmap • Completely solve Complicated Cases • Extract Master Data from Alvex to a separate extension

49. Resources GitHub Repo: https://github.com/ITDSystems/alvex Contacts: @aviriel & @avasyukov & @alvexsoftware ping@itdhq.com