Microservices are becoming very popular these days. Build a process definition and turn it into a Microservice—it's that simple. It’s a compelling concept but very easy to implement using FlowWright. The UI lets you manage Microservices, export and import microservice XML files from other FlowWright environments, and understand usage statistics and call logs.  

You'll need to go ahead and navigate to the Integration - Microservices page. 

The Manage Micro Services UI is rendered below. A list of microservices is displayed in a table sorted by a column. You may use the Search textbox feature to filter the list. 

Select the Actions menu to Create a new microservice. Then, you can select a microservice and use the Edit, Remove, and Copy functions from the menu. 

Select a Microservice and click the Export menu to generate and download the XML or SQL files.  You may use the XML or SQL files to create a microservice on the target FlowWright environment. 

Select the Import menu and choose the XML file from the local folder to import the Microservice. 

Select the API menu to build the Microservice after configuration. The Build Log provides information during the build process. Using the View API menu option, you can view the APIs as a Swagger document. 

Create a Microservice.

Microservices can be defined, updated, removed, and copied using the above UI. So, how do you build a Microservice? Let’s make a Microservice that takes two numbers and returns the sum of the two numbers.

Build a workflow definition called “add2NosDef,” and configure 3 variables as shown below:

Drag an “evaluateExpression” step to the process designer and connect to the “Start” step:

Configure the “evaluateExpression” step with the following values: 

Once configured, save the process definition and navigate to the Microservices UI to create a new Microservice: 

A popup window is displayed for configuration. Provide a name and description for the microservice. Configure the HTTP method to get or post.  Configure On if Authentication is required. The user shall authenticate to use the microservice. Configure On to enable microservice to log events in the Microservice Call Logs menu.  
 

Configure the security access for the microservice by selecting All Users or specific Users/Application Roles. Only users with access permissions can execute the microservice. The example below configures users and application roles as a use case. Configuring one user or application role is mandatory to provide limited access. 

Select the previously configured process definition from the drop-down list. Select ON to save the process instance when the microservice is executed.

You must map variables or globals from the microservice to the process definition.  To map inputs, select the variable/global from the drop-down list. Provide the input name and description. Click the Add button. You may add multiple inputs with different variable/global list selections. To map outputs, select the variable/global from the drop-down list. Provide the output name and description. Click the Add button. You may add multiple outputs with different variable/global list selections. 

Click the Create button. The microservice is saved, and a confirmation message is displayed in the top right-end corner.  

Once the Microservice is created, select the “API - Build” menu item. The microservice is built, and the FlowWright application restarts in the background. You need to re-login to continue this setup.  

Once the REST API is built, select the “API - View API” to render the Microservice REST API:

Let’s select the Microservice and execute the Microservice, provide values for the 2 inputs:

The user can now view the ‘Build log’ directly, Statistics (By User and By Microservice) under the API menu, and ‘View Call Logs’ under the API menu.

You may use the navigation icons to Render Definition and View API on the new page. 

Click on the API menu and observe the ‘Build log’ and ‘View API’ feature options. 

The build log has information about any errors; otherwise, it's empty. 

All dates/times are stored within the database as UTC and displayed based on the user's local timezone. 

Note: Engine runtime data are in ISO + UTC format.