Create Your First Application (a Quick Start)

Ready to create your first application? If so, then here’s a good place to start. We’ll take you through the main steps—from creating the application to making it available to your end users. Along the way, you’ll learn new concepts, pick up some orientation and navigation tips, and complete the entire development life cycle for a travel approval application. And you’ll still have plenty to discover.

Topics:

• Create from a QuickStart App

• Customize the QuickStart App

• Test Activate the QuickStart App

• Try It in Test Mode

• Activate the QuickStart App

Create from a QuickStart App

The easiest way to create your first application is to start by creating one from a QuickStart App. A QuickStart App is a ready-to-use application with all the implementation details included for you to play, test, and activate the application.

To get started:

1. Open the Process Applications page.
   1. Go to the Home page and click Processes, and then click Process Applications.

      The Process Applications page opens. In this page, a developer creates, plays, and tests process applications before an administrator activates them for actual end users. The side panel has options related to creating and administering spaces, and managing active applications.

      Spaces are containers for applications. They let you easily share applications with other developers. See Manage Spaces for Sharing and Collaboration.

      The right panel is your working canvas.

2. Create an application.
   1. Click Create, and then click Start with a QuickStart. The Gallery lists complete applications that you can use as is or adapt to fit your business needs.

      Note that both QuickStart Apps and Sample applications are available in the Gallery. Identify and distinguish between the two types of apps with the label (QUICKSTART or SAMPLE) on the top left corner of each application.

      Use the filter field on the top right of the Gallery window, and select QuickStart from the drop-down menu to show only QuickStart Apps. If you know the name of the QuickStart App, you can type in the name directly in the search field (next to the filter field).

   2. Take a minute to examine each QuickStart App. The description gives you an idea of what’s available. Click More to view its process diagram.
   3. Click the Create button for the Travel Approval application.

      In Process, an application automates one or more business processes to achieve an outcome. This Travel Approval application enables an employee to submit a travel request, which an approver then approves, rejects, or sends back for resubmission.

      In the Name field, enter Request Travel. Deselect Open Immediately for now (we’ll show you another way to open your application) and click Create.

      After your application is created, notice that it’s now listed on the Process Applications page.

3. Open the application you just created.
   1. Take a minute to notice a few things on this page.

      The page shows Overview > Configure > Test > Activate at the top. Overview is selected by default indicating that you're in the application overview page.

      The application details are listed. For example, security (locked or lock free), if it's a private or a public application, and language.

      Get quick access to configure, test, and activate pages with the three large icons.

      
      Description of the illustration create-quickstart-large-icons.png

      Note that the Switch to Advanced View option is at the top right of the page. This means that when the (Travel Approval) QuickStart App was created from the QuickStart Master, the Switch to Advanced View option was enabled. It allows users to toggle between the QuickStart and the advanced view. Click Switch to Advanced View to access all application features, components, and elements.

Customize the QuickStart App

In the Request Travel application you just created, let’s look at how you can customize the application. Although applications created from QuickStart Apps are ready to activate as is, you probably want to change and adapt the application for your business or organization.

Before you continue, review the process flow for the Request Travel application. An employee completes and submits a travel request form for approval. In the Approve Request task, the designated approver reviews the travel request and takes action. The approver can send the request back to the employee for more information, allow the travel, or deny the travel. Depending on what the approver does, the employee might need to re-submit the form with more information or can book the travel.

Description of the illustration quickstart-more-details.png

To customize the application:

1. Click Configure.

   Remember that you created this travel application based on an existing QuickStart App. The developer who created the QuickStart Master decides what parts of the application you can customize. For example, in the Request Travel application, you can change settings for the Approve Request task, the Resubmit task, and the Book Travel task.

   
   Description of the illustration quickstart-configure.png

2. Modify settings associated with the approve task.
   1. Change who can approve the travel request. For example, in the Build a list of participants field, select Names and Expressions. Then build the list of approvers by clicking Add and searching by user name.
   2. Scroll the page and change the priority of this task to High.
   3. After you've completed modifying the settings, close the task, and go back to the main Configure page that lists all the activities.
3. Modify settings associated with the resubmit task.
   1. Click the Resubmit activity.
   2. In the Title field, change the text to Resubmit request: more info needed.
   3. In the Due Date field, enter 10d. The employee will have ten days to resubmit the travel request.
   4. In the Reminders section, select Remind Once, set the interval to 0M5d0h0m, and select Before Due Date. With these settings, the employee will be reminded 5 days before the due date to resubmit the travel form.

Test Activate the QuickStart App

In this next step, you’ll test your application. Test activating activates the application to a runtime environment, which lets you play with and refine it. You can test the various user tasks, flows, and outcomes in the process. You don’t activate the application to the production environment until it’s ready.

To activate your application to a test runtime environment:

1. Click Test.

   The Test page opens. Notice that the drop-down list indicates that the current version of the application is selected for test activation.

   
   Description of the illustration qs-test-activate.png

2. Click Activate.
3. Make sure the Add Me to All Roles check box is selected (so you’ll be able to test any task assigned to any user), and click Activate.

   
   Description of the illustration qs-activate-test.png

Try It in Test Mode

And now you’re ready to try the application in the runtime test mode. Because you added yourself to all roles when test activating the application, you can submit requests in the employee role and also approve or reject requests in the approver role. You’re able to test every part of the process.

To test your application:

1. Click Try in Test Mode to try out your application as an end user. A new browser tab opens displaying the runtime environment, where end users start applications and complete assigned tasks.

   Notice the Testing Mode option in the toolbar, indicating test activation:

   
   Description of the illustration rt_test_mode.png

2. Click My Apps. Locate your application by its title. Remember, you changed the title to Request Travel. Click its badge.
3. Complete the travel form, which starts the process. The rules that were set up for this form require a value in all fields except Email and Justification. Click Submit.

   After you submit, a message confirms that you successfully started the application. Click the badge again and submit another request and repeat until you have submitted three requests.

4. Click Inbox in the menu bar. Three tasks that begin with Approver display.
   1. Select the first task to view its details, then click Approve. In this case, the process is done and removed from the task list.
   2. Select the next approval task, and this time, click Reject. This task is also removed from the list.
   3. Select the last remaining approval task, scroll the page, and enter this comment:

      Please provide details in your justification and submit again.

      Click Post Comment, and then click More Information.

      
      Description of the illustration rt_test_deploy.png

5. Refresh the task list by clicking Inbox. Notice that the task now begins with Employee rather than Approver. Click to open the employee task, enter a justification, and click Submit. The task is removed from the list.
6. Refresh the task list once more and notice the task now begins with Approver. Select the task and approve the travel request this time.

   You successfully tested each possible scenario in your travel request application.

7. Click Test Mode Close in the Testing Mode bar to exit.
8. Click Develop Processes to return to the Process Applications page.

Activate the QuickStart App

So far, you have created an application from a QuickStart App, viewed and edited the travel approval process, activated the application to a test environment, and then tested each possible task in the process. Your application is good to go. The final step is to make it available to your end users.

Any user who has administrator privileges can activate a QuickStart App to a production environment. As a developer, you may or may not have this privilege.

To activate your QuickStart App to a production environment:

1. Click Activate.
2. Click Activate new version.

   The activate wizard opens. Select which version of your QuickStart App to activate.

   Let the wizard guide you through the activation process. Here are a few additional tips:

   • You can skip the Customize page. These settings are optional so you can leave all the fields blank.

   • On the Activation Options page, you must enter a revision ID. You might also want to select override and default options.

     The revision ID is part of the activation. You can enter any number (including sub-revision numbers such as 1.0.1).

     • If you enter the same revision number as an existing instance, then you must also select the Override check box. Otherwise, the activation will fail because there’s already an instance of the application with that number. Also, selecting Override causes all existing instances to go stale.

     • If you enter a new revision number, then that version is activated separately alongside any other versions. Your new version will be listed on the Manage Active Applications page with the revision number you assigned. Note that if you’re activating a new version, then selecting the Override check box has no affect.

     Optionally, you can specify that this version be marked as the default version. Because applications are activated using a revision number, you can reference an individual version by its revision number. You can also reference the default version. For example, when calling the REST API to initiate a process, you might want to initiate whatever version has been marked as that default instead of initiating a version by its number.

After you successfully activate your application, you—or a user with administrator privileges—must assign end users to the roles defined in the application process. Roles define what end users can do, such as whether they can start the application and what tasks they’re assigned. See Assign and Manage Roles.