Intro
This tutorial provides a brief introduction to PIPEFORCE's key components and concepts, without going into extensive details.
It is meant to give a first, simple overview about the core spaces and act as a starting point.
The Platform
PIPEFORCE is a turnkey cloud platform for operational excellence teams to do AI-based business process automation and data integration.
It covers all aspects from planning, implementation, testing and operating on a single platform.
It is turnkey: That means it works out-of-the box and provides many built-in services each fully integrated with each other such as for example:
User and Identity Management
LDAP / AD Service
Reporting Service
File Sync & Share Service
Archiving Service
Forms and List Builder
BPMN Workflow engine
RPA
Data Integration Pipelines
Push Notifications
And more…
Having these combined services you can 100% focus on your business related solutions.
The Portal
The self service portal is the central starting point for both: employees, developers and customers.
Once a new business application has been created and published by developers, it appears on the portal.
Upon logging in employees, customers and partners can see a list of available applications and easily start them by clicking one the tiles:
The Business App
An business app in PIPEFORCE is typically the first step to build a business automation solution.
Apps can include various elements such as forms, lists, workflows, and data integration pipelines among others.
Once the app has been published, it can be used by customers, employees or partners.
You can learn more about apps here: App.
The Automation Pipeline
An automation pipeline (sometimes also called “data pipeline” or just “pipeline” in short) in PIPEFORCE is the “glue” between all data entities, workflows, executions and integrations of a business application.
Since this pipeline is written in YAML in a very simple Low-Code format, it can be managed by source code control systems like GitHub for example so it can be easily shared and collaborated by a team of software developers and citizen developers. Here is an example of such an automation pipeline:
pipeline:
- http.get: https://host/sales-numbers.pdf
- drive.save: downloads/sales-numbers.pdf
- mail.send:
to: sales@mycompany.com
subject: New sales numbers
message: Here are the latest sales numbers.
This simple automation pipeline downloads a PDF document from an HTTP endpoint, stores the document in the cloud drive and finally sends a reminder email to the sales team. All with three simple commands.
Furthermore, there is a No Code designer available in order to edit the automation pipelines without any source code touch points so it additionally lowers the barriers for non-technical users:
The automation pipeline connects data from different endpoints like forms or APIs for example. It can calculate, normalize, map or convert data from other systems and interfaces. It can also execute business logic and workflows if required. All of this is done using low-code and no-code. So there is no need for deep dive development.
On the other hand, for more advanced users, there is always the option to “open-up” and create more complex solutions, in case the low-code approach isn’t enough.
You can learn more about pipelines here: Automation Pipelines.
The Command
Every automation pipeline consists of one or more commands.
A command is a single endpoint step, which can be called to do an operation like returning the current date, up to more complex executions like scanning documents for keywords or starting an BPM workflow to automate something.
Commands can start a microservice in PIPEFORCE or trigger an external cloud service and many more.
You can learn more about commands here: Commands.
The Workflow
More complex and stateful human interactions are defined in BPMN 2.0 workflows in PIPEFORCE.
This is an official ISO standard to define business processes with a standardized graphical way.
In PIPEFORCE you can design, manage, deploy and directly start BPMN workflows from within the user interface without any breaks:
From inside such a workflow you can then connect a task to other automation pipelines or to custom forms which allows you to not only document your processes but also to directly implement and bring them to life with the matter of a few clicks.
You can learn more about workflows here: BPMN Workflows.
The Command Line Interface (CLI)
The command line interface is a little command line tool, which can be used to automate tasks from your local command line and to manage a workspace.
However, this is recommended for advanced users only.
If you’re new to PIPEFORCE, consider starting with the online workbench and low-code features first.
You can learn more about the CLI here: Command Line Interface (CLI).
The Property Store
The Property Store is a key-value database, which stores all resources (mainly JSON documents) related to your business apps. Any resource stored in this database is called a property in PIPEFORCE.
Whenever you submit form data, store configurations for apps, want to temporarily cache data, or need just a persistent storage, the property store is the primary location to store this data.
It is hierarchical and supports advanced features such as tagging, searching, encryption, locking and much more.
You can learn more about the property store here: Property Store.
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