Introduction to Decisions Modules

Overview

Decisions Modules is a feature within the Decisions platform that allows the Administrator to install plug-ins for an external service that add new features to Decisions of that service, similar to how an extension works in an Internet browser. An example of these added features could be flow steps, entire workflows, or more advanced configuration options for certain settings. Available modules can be found within the Decisions platform by navigating to System > Administration > Features. It is important to read the description of the module that is intended to be installed.

Available Modules

Active Directory Module

The Active Directory module offers Flow Steps that allow Designers to build workflows for managing Active Directory. Using the Flow Designer in Decisions coupled with the additional steps included in this Module, administrators can create users, groups, associations, and more.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Module

The Amazon Web Services Module offers additional Flow Steps for the Flow Designer that are used for communicating with two Amazon Web Services; Kinesis and RedShift.

Approvals Module

The Approvals Module offers several pre-built Flows that are primarily used for tracking request and approval activity within an organization. Approvals offers both basic and comprehensive flows for anything from simple approvals to handling approvals that are multi-level, parallel, tracked, or more. Designers can use the Approval Flows in their own workflows directly, as a sub-flow, or simply as a model to base a new design on. After installing the Approvals Module, you will find an array of different workflow options within the Workflow Catalog:

For additional information or help on getting started with Approvals in Decisions, please refer to the documents listed below.

• Using the Approvals Module
• Introduction to Approval Chain
• Using Main Approval Flow

AuthorizeNET Module

Authorize.NET is a service that allows users to process electronic credit card payments. The Authorize.NET Module offers Flow Steps that allow Designers to access Authorize.NET services within the Flow Designer. Using this Module makes it easy to accept electronic credit card payments from a Form within a Flow.

Box Module

Box is a cloud content management and file sharing service for businesses. The Box Cloud Service Module allows Designers to create Flows that gives end-users the ability to send and receive files from their Box cloud storage.

Decisions.Core

Decisions.Core is not a Module that a Designer can install as it is native to the Decisions platform. The Designer will see it in the Features folder, located under System > Administration. This Module provides most of the Workflows, Pages, and Rules that are used to run the stock Decisions platform.

Decisions.Demos

The Demos Module installs a number of sample workflows that are used for demonstration and learning purposes.

Designer Repository

The Decisions Designer Repository is a configuration management service that allows the storing, versioning, and installation of created artifacts in the Decisions Studio.

Development Server

This Module would need to be installed by the administrator when a server is being set up as a Development Server. A Development Server has the Designer Repository installed by default, as it provides sand-box work environments for Designers to create in.

Docker Module

The Docker Module allows certain rules and flows to run in managed containers. This capability will expand rapidly over the course of the next several releases. This feature is currently a restricted use module and would require the Designer to contact the Decisions Support Team to enable. The current Docker module is only available in Decisions version 6 and requires an Enterprise level license to use. This feature is currently limited, and only compatible with certain parts of Decisions. Specifically, the current Docker can only run containerized rules or flows with no UI elements (such as forms) within AWS containers.

Docusign Module

The Docusign Module offers the Designer additional Flow Steps so that documents can be sent to Docusign from a workflow for capturing electronic signatures and initials. The steps are limited to using X,Y positioning on the document for marking where to sign. Additionally, you can use Docusign’s “Tag” feature to indicate areas in the document that requires signatures. Once a document is sent to Docusign through a Decisions workflow, you can use the Wait On External Event step to monitor Docusign so the document can be pulled back into the workflow once it is fully executed. When installed, the Docusign Steps will be located in the Integration folder from the Step Catalog.

Enterprise Module

The Enterprise Module adds functionality for processing large amounts of batch data, persistent work queues, and data sharing in active/active clusters.

Excel Formula Module

The Excel Formula Module offers Designers a few unique Flow Steps that are used to execute formulas in an Excel spreadsheet and return the results. These steps can be found in the Steps Catalog under Data > List > Excel and CSV > Extra.

Flow Sets and Rule Sets

Flow Sets and Rule Sets allow for the construction of complex rules and similar flows that share common patterns. All of the Rules and Flows are executed using one service call or as a single step in a calling Flow, where each Flow or Rule is evaluated and a composite result will be ran. Here are two articles with further detail on how Flow Sets and Rule Sets are used in Decisions:

Flow Sets

Foreign Exchange Module

The Foreign Exchange Module offers Flow steps for getting real-time exchange rates between currencies. Please note that using this Module will require an account at StrikeIron.com. When you install this module, you will find the additional Flow Steps located in the Step Catalog under Integration > Foreign Exchange.

HL7 Module

The HL7 Module is the core of the HL7Flow product found at: http://www.hl7flow.com. This module adds a full HL7 Engine to the Decisions platform, allowing the Designer to combine the power of the Flow, Form, Rule, and Report Designers with HL7 data and common HL7 connection types to manage medical data streams.  The HL7 module includes data types for all standard messages, as well as interfaces.

Hosting

Decisions Hosting houses the process of handling multi-tenant functionality and is installed by the system when a Multi-Tenant server is present.

ICal Module

The ICal Module allows for the creation of ICal invites and events.  ICal is the data format used to request meetings on common calendar programs like Microsoft Exchange/Outlook and Google Calendars. More information on ICal can be found here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar.

InfoBlox Module

The InfoBlox Module offers Integration steps for InfoBlox services. InfoBlox is an IT automation and security company, more information about the company and its services can be found at: www.infoblox.com.

Decisions.Local

Decisions.Local is not a Module that a Designer can install as it is native to the Decisions platform. The Designer will see it in the Features folder, located under System > Administration. This Module allows Designers to put new things into Decisions that are not part of a formal, structured module like the others listed here. This is very commonly used to add custom Flow steps to the Flow Designer or custom Rule parts to the Rule Designer.

PGP Add-On

The PGP add-on offers integration in Decisions with PGP document encryption, also known as Pretty Good Privacy.

For more information on PGP, please visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy.

Powershell Module

The Powershell Module allows for the execution of powershell scripts from Flows within Decisions. Powershell is a powerful scripting platform that has a large number of integration plugins, these plugins make system software and enterprise application integration possible.

For more information on Powershell, please visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell.

QR Codes Module

The QR Codes Module offers steps that allow QR Coded images to be interpreted within a flow and also allows for QR Codes to be created.

For more information on the QR Code Module within Decisions, please visit our QR Codes Module document.

RabbitMQ Module

RabbitMQ is a .NET messaging system for application-to-application communication. The RabbitMQ Module adds RabbitMQ capability into the Decisions messaging service, allowing the Designer to connect Flows to RabbitMQ queues as subscribers so the Flows can work messages. Designers can also push messages to queues using Flow steps provided by this Module.

For more information on RabbitMQ, please visit https://www.rabbitmq.com/.

For more information about the benefits of the RabbitMQ Module in Decisions, please visit our Setting Messaging Overview document.

Remedy Module

Remedy is an enterprise-grade help desk ticketing system for IT and System Management needs. This Module offers Flow steps that allow a user to receive, create, and modify tickets in a Remedy system as part of a Flow.

Remote Active Directory Module

The Remote Active Directory Module is used under particular complex circumstances using multi-tenancy and Active Directory Automation.

Salesforce Module

For most Salesforce interactions, this web service integration in Decisions Studio will generate steps that run against the Salesforce Enterprise WSDL, including all custom data types and functionality. This Module adds some specific help steps to deal with integration difficulties that may occur with Salesforce Web Services document handling.

For more information about the Salesforce Module in Decisions, please visit our Salesforce Module Basics document.

SAML Module

SAML, Security Assertion Markup Language, is a standard Single Sign-On (SSO) mechanism for sharing user authentications. Google, Facebook, and other services allow authentication to be shared using this mechanism. Decisions can use SAML to provide user authentication, although additional setup is required for integration to a SAML provider.

For more general information on SAML, please visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Assertion_Markup_Language.

To find out more about SAML within Decisions, please visit our Single Sign On SAML document.

SCCM Module

The SCCM Module offers settings and Flow steps used to integrate with Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager for automating IT management tasks. These additional features can be used in Flows to send Task Sequences to machine collections in order to automate common system management functions. An example of this would be an IT person installing software updates for company computers after a manager approves the updates using the Decisions Flow engine. These additional steps can be found in the Step Catalog under the SCCM Steps section.

SCO Module

The SCO Module is used for integrating with Microsoft’s System Center Orchestrator. This Module is generally only used with the SCCM Module.

For more information on Microsoft’s SCO, please visit this Microsoft document on SCO.

Scripting Module

The Scriptin Module allows the Designer to run the execution of C# code from with a Flow step. The code can be typed directly into the Properties of the step, where it is then compiled and executed within the workflow. This integration is designed for programmers who want to inject special functionality into a Flow without using the Decisions SDK (Software Development Kit).

Sharepoint Module

The Sharepoint Module offers Flow steps for dealing with lists and documents in Sharepoint using the Flow Designer. This Module is not needed to embed Decisions Forms, Flows, and user-driven Workflows in Sharepoint; it is only needed if the Designer wants the Flow Engine to be able to access, update, and modify lists or documents in Microsoft Sharepoint.

SymantecSMP Module

The Symantec Management Platform is a system for central IT administration and system management activity like software deployment, or updating computer configurations across an enterprise. Decisions offers Flow steps that allows the Designer to add workflows based around the Symantec Management Platform. An example of this would be if a user assigned tasks to a manager using our workflow; once approved, the user could activate a management activity in Symantec Management Platform to deliver software or update a computer.

Telephony Module

The Telephony Module offers integration options for use with Twillio. This Module also offers steps for automating Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) and Short Message Service (SMS) interactions.

For more information about Twillio, please visit: https://www.twilio.com/.

Unit Tests Module

The Unit Tests Module is the Unit Test framework used exclusively by the Decisions Quality Assurance team to validate the functionality of the Decisions platform. It is included only to allow Decisions QA to run tests on servers for ensuring that the server infrastructure is properly functioning.

Utilities Module

The Decisions Utilities Module holds the base functionality for project importing from other formats. For example, if the Designer has a large number of workflows that need to be imported from another system, Decisions Support would need to be contacted to discuss the implementation of this module.

Word To PDF Module

The Word-To-PDF Module offers the Designer additional Flow steps for converting Microsoft Word documents into PDF documents.