Usage Overview |  print-friendly |
User Interface
RADRunner can be used from any device that has a web browser, even a suitable mobile phone. A typical screenshot is shown below (click on it to view a full size version and explanation):
Screens
There are only a few different web pages in RADRunner. Apart from a simple administration page, there are the following screens:
- Login
- Login as a user of the system
- Register New User
- Add a new user to the system
- User
- Display Roles assigned to current user
- Start New Role
- Assign new Role to current user
- Role
- Display available activities in current Role
- Activity
- Display non-automated tasks in current activity
- Task
- Prompt for input to current task
- Role snapshot
- Display the present state of the current Role in Playwright XML form
- Resources snapshot
- Display the present state of the current Role's resources in standard XML form
Some of these pages cause a change to the system simply by being displayed, even if no input from the user is made. In particular:
- The first time the login page is loaded, the system will initialise (unless it has been manually started from the administration page)
- If the current Role is automated, loading the Role page causes an automation cycle to execute for that Role
- The snapshot pages each place a file containing the generated XML in the system in directory, from where it can be viewed and/or edited via the LAN and/or HTTP.
Users
A user of the system is identified by their email - which must be unique - and password.
Each user has a name, but this does not have to be unique.
A user may be a machine, in which case its Role(s) are operated by RADRunner rather than by a human user.
A user may be offline, in which case it is known to the current system but its Role(s) are operated by a different system. The other system may be another RADRunner installation, a different process management system, or manual procedures.
User Page
The User Page in RADRunner displays the Role instances currently assigned to the logged in user. They are displayed in batches, and the user can navigate up, down or to the top at any time.
The batch size is controlled by the system property com.rolemodellers.rim.roleBatchSize, for which the default value is 8.
Roles
A Role captures the notion of a related set of goals and responsibilities. It includes:
- Data, known as resources
- Activities which operate on that data
Role Page
The Role Page in RADRunner displays the activities that are currently available. They are displayed in batches, and the user can navigate up, down or to the top at any time.
The batch size is controlled by the system property com.rolemodellers.rim.actionBatchSize, for which the default value is 8.
Role Automation
A Role may be automated. The effect of this setting depends on the parent Role - the one which started the Role in question. If the parent contains a task Do Automated Role Instances, then every time this task is carried out, RADRunner will carry out all automatable tasks within the child, without prompting for user input.
The root Role in the system is 42, an instance of the 42 Role type. This Role type contains a Do Automated Role Instances task, and by default, so do all new Role types. Moreover, in both cases the task is contained in an activity with no precondition, i.e., one that can execute at any time. Hence the default behaviour of the system is for automation to be enabled in all automated Role instances. However, this can be changed at any time by removing the task from a particular parent, which would prevent automation in all children however deeply nested, or by placing a precondition on the task in a particular parent, which would enable it only under specific conditions.
If a parent is itself automated, and contains an available Do Automated Role Instances task, then the children will be automated whenever:
- A user logs in to the parent Role and visits the Role page
- The background automation cycle kicks in and reaches the parent Role
Resources
The resources in a Role are structured in tree form:
- The leaves are known as attributes - each one contains either a String, an Integer, a Float, a Boolean or a Date. There is a special Date type Now which always evaluates to the current time.
- The branches are known as entities - these contain a list of sub-entities and/or a list of attributes
A Role may not contain entity attributes directly, only entities.
See the task Get Resource From Collection for a discussion of collections inside a Role's resources.
Resources can be imported from and exported to standard XML.
Activities
A Role does not contain work items directly - it contains activities, each of which may contain several tasks. An activity executes under transactional control. If any of the tasks within it fails, all of the tasks will fail and no changes will be saved.
Activity Page
The Activity Page in RADRunner displays the user-interactive tasks in the current activity. They are displayed in batches, and the user can navigate up, down or to the top at any time.
The batch size is controlled by the system property com.rolemodellers.rim.actionStepBatchSize, for which the default value is 8.
Tasks
There are 2 types of tasks: process definition and process enactment.
However, it is quite possible for a single Role to include tasks of both types. This is what makes it possible for a RADRunner system to evolve from within, to cater for special cases and meet changing organisational practices.
