A common use case is for a set of LiveCycle services to operate on a single document. You can send
a request to the service container by creating a process using Workbench.
A process represents a business process that you are automating.
For information about creating processes, see Using Workbench.
Once a process is activated, it becomes a service and can be
invoked like other services. One difference between a standard service,
such as the Encryption service and a service that originated from
a process, is that the latter has one operation that performs many
actions. In contrast, an standard service has many operations. Each
operation typically performs one action, such as applying a policy
to a document or encrypting a document.
Processes can be short-lived or long-lived. A short-lived process
is an operation that is performed synchronously and on the same
execution thread from which it was invoked. Short-lived operations
are comparable to the standard behavior found in most programming
languages, where a client application calls a method and waits for
a return value.
However, there are situations where a process cannot be completed
synchronously due to factors such as these:
A process can span a significant amount of time.
A process can span organizational boundaries.
A process needs external input in order for it to finish.
For example, consider a situation where a form is sent to a manager
who is out of the office. In this situation, the process is not
complete until the manager returns and fills out the form.
These
types of processes are known as long-lived processes. A long-lived process
is performed asynchronously, allowing for systems to interact as resources
permit and allowing for the tracking and monitoring of the operation.
When a long-lived process is invoked, LiveCycle creates an
invocation identifier value as part of a record that tracks the
long-lived process status. The record is stored in the LiveCycle database. You can purge long-lived process records when
they are no longer required. (See Purging Process Data.)
Note: LiveCycle does
not create a record when a short-lived process is invoked.
Using
the invocation identifier value, you can track the status of the
long-lived process. For example, you can use the process invocation
identifier value to perform Process Manager operations such as terminating
a running process instance. (See Terminating Process Instances.)
Short lived process example
The following illustration is an
example of a short-lived process named MyApplication/EncryptDocument.
Note: This process is not based on an existing LiveCycle process. To follow along with the code examples that discuss
how to invoke this process, create a process named
MyApplication/EncryptDocument using
Workbench. (See
Using Workbench.)
When this
short-lived process is invoked, it performs the following actions:
Obtains the unsecured PDF document that is passed to the
process as an input value.
Encrypts the PDF document with a password. The name of the
input parameter for this process is inDoc and the
data type is document.
Saves the password-encrypted PDF document as a PDF file to
the local file system. This process returns the encrypted PDF document
as an output value. The name of the output parameter for this process
is outDoc and the data type is document.
This
process is completed synchronously on the same execution thread
from which it was invoked. The name of this short-lived process
is MyApplication/EncryptDocument and its operation
is invoke.
Note: Typically a short-lived
process consists of more than three actions. You create a process
using Workbench. (See
Using Workbench.)
Programming with LiveCycledescribes
the following ways in which you can programmatically invoke this
short-lived process:
Long-lived process example
The following illustration is an example
of a long-lived process.
This process is invoked when an
applicant submits a loan form. The process is not complete until
a loan officer approves or rejects the loan request. The name of this
long-lived process is FirstAppSolution/PreLoanProcess and
its operation is invoke_Async. This process must
be invoked asynchronously. For information about programmatically
invoking this long-lived process, see Invoking Human-Centric Long-Lived Processes.
