Adding an Application Creation Workflow

This section explains how to attach a custom workflow to the application creation operation in WSO2 API Manager (WSO2 API-M). First, see Workflow Extensions for information on different types of workflow executors.

Attaching a custom workflow to application creation allows you to control the creation of applications within the Store. An application is the entity that holds a set of subscribed  API's that would be accessed by a authorization key specified for that praticular application. Hence, controlling the creation of these applications would be a decision based on the oragnization's requirement. Some example use cases would be

• Review the information of the application by a specific reviewer before the application is created.
• The application creation would be offered as a paid service.
• The application creation should be allowed only to users who are in a specific role.

Configuring WSO2 API Manager

Open the <API-M_HOME>/repository/deployment/server/jaggeryapps/admin/site/conf/site.json file and configure "workFlowServerURL" under "workflows" to point to the EI/BPS server (e.g., "workFlowServerURL": "https://localhost:9445/services/")

Engaging the WS Workflow Executor in the API Manager

First, enable the application creation workflow.

1. Sign in to WSO2 API-M management console (https://<Server-Host>:9443/carbon) and select Browse under Resources.
   

2. Go to the /_system/governance/apimgt/applicationdata/workflow-extensions.xml resource, disable the Simple Workflow Executor, and enable WS Workflow Executor. In addition, specify the service endpoint where the workflow engine is hosted and the credentials required to access the said service via basic authentication (i.e., username/password based authentication).
   

   <WorkFlowExtensions>
   ...
       <ApplicationCreation executor="org.wso2.carbon.apimgt.impl.workflow.ApplicationCreationWSWorkflowExecutor">
            <Property name="serviceEndpoint">http://localhost:9765/services/ApplicationApprovalWorkFlowProcess/</Property>
            <Property name="username">admin</Property>
            <Property name="password">admin</Property>
            <Property name="callbackURL">https://localhost:8243/services/WorkflowCallbackService</Property>
       </ApplicationCreation>
   ... 
   </WorkFlowExtensions>

   All the workflow process services of the EI/BPS run on port 9765 because you changed its default port (9763) with an offset of 2.

   The application creation WS Workflow Executor is now engaged.

3. Go to the API Store, click Applications and create a new application.
   It invokes the application creation process and creates a Human Task instance that holds the execution of the BPEL process until some action is performed on it.    
   You will see the following application details stating "Waiting for approval" if the BPEL is invoked correctly, indicating that the request is successfully submitted. 
   

4. Also, if you go to the application listing page, you will see the status of the application is stated as "INACTIVE(Waiting for approval)"

   

5. Sign in to the Admin Portal (https://localhost:9443/admin), list all the tasks for application creation and approve the task. It resumes the BPEL process and completes the application creation.

6. Go back to the Applications page in WSO2 API Store and see the created application. 

   Whenever a user tries to create an application in the API Store, a request is sent to the workflow endpoint. Given below is a sample:

   <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:wor="http://workflow.subscription.apimgt.carbon.wso2.org">
      <soapenv:Header />
      <soapenv:Body>
         <wor:createApplication xmlns:wor="http://workflow.application.apimgt.carbon.wso2.org">
            <wor:applicationName>application1</wor:applicationName>
            <wor:applicationTier>Gold</wor:applicationTier>
            <wor:applicationCallbackUrl>http://webapp/url</wor:applicationCallbackUrl>
            <wor:applicationDescription>Application 1</wor:applicationDescription>
            <wor:tenantDomain>wso2.com</wor:tenantDomain>
            <wor:userName>user1</wor:userName>
            <wor:workflowExternalRef>c0aad878-278c-4439-8d7e-712ee71d3f1c</wor:workflowExternalRef>
            <wor:callBackURL>https://localhost:8243/services/WorkflowCallbackService</wor:callBackURL>
         </wor:createApplication>
      </soapenv:Body>
   </soapenv:Envelope>

   Elements of the above configuration are described below:

   Element	Description
   applicationName	Name of the application the user creates.
   applicationTier	Throttling tier of the application.
   applicationCallbackUrl	When the OAuth2 Authorization Code grant type is applied, this is the endpoint on which the callback needs to happen after the user is authenticated. This is an attribute of the actual application registered on the API Store.
   applicationDescription	Description of the application
   tenantDomain	Tenant domain associated with the application (domain of the user creating the application).
   userName	Username of the user creating the application.
   workflowExternalRef	The unique reference against which a workflow is tracked. This needs to be sent back from the workflow engine to the API Manager at the time of workflow completion.
   callBackURL	At the time of workflow completion, the workflow engine sends the workflow-completion request to this URL. This property is configured in the <callBackURL> element in the api-manager.xml file.