Body
Overview
This article is intended to help developers and managers learn about Broadcom's Applications Manager (originally named and still referred to as AppWorx).
Rather than trying to reinvent existing documentation, this article will point to the "Applications Manager Online Manuals" which can be found in the Applications Manager Help menu.
There is also an Appworx Basic Training Student Guide workbook in Admin 307 from 2004 when we first purchased AppWorx v6. The company has been sold at least 3 times since then, Broadcom being the current owner having purchased it from Automic.
Despite the age, it's still a reasonable guide because most of the concepts and general screen layout are the same. However some of the terminology has changed over the years. The biggest of those terminology changes are these:
- Modules in the manual are now called Jobs
- Chains (aka Job Streams) are now called Process Flows
The Applications Manager Online Manuals help option contains links to Broadcom's technical documentation and is exhaustive documentation on the product and is pretty well done.
The following topics seemed to be of the most use to a beginner: (Note: the term Appworx is still used frequently in these. It simply means Applications Manager)
- Applications Manager Objects: a useful glossary of the objects you may encounter. The main ones for a beginner are Jobs and Process Flows
- Getting Started Guide: help for getting started with Applications Manager whether a new install or new development
- Introduction to Applications Manager: partially overview, partially a sales job as to why you might want to use it
- Administration: Installation, controlling access to people and data, managing output, etc.
- Development: creating jobs, process flows, parameters, etc.
- Operations: Monitoring the system, troubleshooting, managing exceptions, etc.
- User Guide:
- Applications Manager Overview
- Using the Applications Manager Desktop: some helpful navigation hints
- Viewing Operations Reports
- Requesting and Submitting Jobs and Process Flows: how you get things done
- Viewing and Printing Output: seeing the output of your job if there is any
- Monitoring and Managing Tasks in Explore: some of this is more oriented to the administrator, but it is how you can track your job's progress and status
- Troubleshooting Failed Tasks: how to see the job log files. This will show errors but you can also insert output into your job intended for sysout and such.
- Querying and Filtering Explorer: helpful when you need to find a particular job or process flow and the instances when it has run. Note that there is a aging out process so that this data is not kept forever
- Development Guide: detail on how to create jobs, process flows, and the options for them
- Applications Manager Development: general notes and guidelines
- Creating Jobs: the main tools: Jobs can run stand-alone or can be run from within Process Flows. You will want to be familiar with the tabs in the Jobs Window.
- Creating Process Flows: Process Flows are made up of Jobs, but there are also sequencing and decision components. Again, you'll want to be familiar with the tabs in the Process Flows window. Some are similar to the ones in the Jobs window, others are not.
- Administration Guide: details for administrators
- Applications manager Administration: miscellaneous things the administrator will want to be aware of
- Defining Output Devices: some printers will need to be know by Applications Manager
Good luck. AppWorx / Applications Manager is a pretty robust tool.