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

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Oksana Kurysheva @aviriel

Alexey Vasyukov @avasyukov

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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

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Questions for the next 39 minutes

What is Master Data?

1 2 3 4

Storing Master Data in Alfresco

External Master Data

Complicated cases

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1 2 3 4

External Master Data

Complicated cases

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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.

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1 2

3 4

Integrating Alfresco with external Master Data

Complicated cases

Out of the box implementation Data-list based implementation

5 Conclusion

3.1

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Constraints in the content model

Users can

select a value from the list.

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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.

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1

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

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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

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<appearance> <field id=“dm:color”> <control template=“/form-controls/dynamic-dropdown.ftl”> <control-param name=“pickListName”>Color</control-param> </control> </field> </appearance>

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Solves basic issue quickly

• Business users can edit constraints in browser!

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Updating a list of values Performance Permissions Share-Tier No native constraint Still no sync with external Master Data

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1 2 3

The Good The Bad 3.1 3.2 4 Complicated cases 5 Conclusion

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External Master Data

Assumptions:

• Master data is in 3rd party systems. • These systems have remote APIs.

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Architectural Choice

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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>

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

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2 Storing Master Data in Alfresco 3 The Good The Bad 3.1 3.2 4 Complicated cases 5 Conclusion

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External Master Data

Quite obvious idea becomes tricky: • Live data vs Cached data

• Performance and bottlenecks • Changes in reference data

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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

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Performance

• Constraint is expected to be extremely fast

• Just reading field with list constraint with N values causes N+1 call to Constraint class.

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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

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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

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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}

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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)

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Handing Tree-Like Structures

• Jean Barmash implementation (2008)

https://forums.alfresco.com/comment/80963#co mment-80963

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What is Master Data? 1

2 3 4

Storing Master Data in Alfresco External Master Data

Complicated cases

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

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Roadmap

• Completely solve Complicated Cases • Extract Master Data from Alvex to a

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Resources

GitHub Repo:

https://github.com/ITDSystems/alvex

Contacts:

@aviriel & @avasyukov & @alvexsoftware [email protected]