ISIM Workflow Extensions

During recent ramblings, I mentioned that I would publish some of my favourite ISIM workflow extensions. The workflow extensions that are provided "out of the box" cover tasks such as adding, modifying and deleting accounts and identities as well as enforcing policy and other standard operations. However, the "out of the box" list could do with having a number of useful extensions added.

One of my favourites (and something I pretty much insist on being installed as soon as I've deployed ISIM) is my version of a sendmail. ISIM has the ability to send emails, but only to those identities who have an email address. However, what if you wanted to send an email to an address which was not attached to any identity? What if you wanted to email a user during a self-registration workflow at which point the identity has not yet been created?

My sendmail extension is just a handful of lines long, uses standard ISIM methods and takes just the following arguments: eMail Address, Subject and Body.

The code is very simple indeed:

public ActivityResult sendMail(String mailAddress, String mailSubject, String mailBody) {

  try {

    List<String> addresses = new ArrayList<String>();

    addresses.add(mailAddress);

    NotificationMessage nMessage = new NotificationMessage(addresses, mailSubject, mailBody, mailBody);

    MailManager.notify(nMessage);

    return new ActivityResult(ActivityResult.STATUS_COMPLETE,

      ActivityResult.SUCCESS,

      "eMail Sent",

      null);

  } catch (Exception e) {

    return new ActivityResult(ActivityResult.STATUS_COMPLETE,

      ActivityResult.FAILED,

      "eMail Not Sent",

      null);

  }

}

Registering the JAR and registering the extension in the workflowextensions.xml file is all that is required to make the extension available.

<ACTIVITY ACTIVITYID="sendMail" LIMIT="600000">

  <IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE>

    <APPLICATION CLASS_NAME="com.sswann.sendMail" METHOD_NAME="sendMail" />

  </IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE>

  <TRANSITION_RESTRICTION SPLIT="XOR" />

  <PARAMETERS>

    <IN_PARAMETERS PARAM_ID="recipient" TYPE="String" />

    <IN_PARAMETERS PARAM_ID="subject" TYPE="String" />

    <IN_PARAMETERS PARAM_ID="body" TYPE="String" />

  </PARAMETERS>

</ACTIVITY>

From here, it's merely a matter of constructing your relevant data and handling the activity.resultSummary correctly in your subsequent nodes.

Previously, I stated that workflow extensions should be created when you find you are repeating Javascript over and over again. If you need to check the status of an account owner before invoking an account operation, that would sound like a great candidate for creating a workflow extension and having a solid reusable component. A list of useful extensions might include:

• Check Account Already Exists
• Check Owner Status
• Check Manager Status
• Read/Update LDAP Object (not an identity or account)
• Read/Update Database Object
• Read/Update Message on ESB (MQ)
• Call Web Service
• Create Helpdesk Ticket/Send Alert

Have you any good candidates for an extension?