Agile Enterprise Application Development with Flex

Business Example: Warehouse Processes

The remaining part of this chapter refers to a more complex business scenario. Instead of creating Flexlets to complement the design of the Workspace, here you are in charge of the entire application. This scenario has a much wider applicability scope: in particular, it illustrates how you can add workflow capabilities to an existing Flex application.

The participants of the scenario are a Retailer, a Supplier, and a Manufacturer. First consider the Retailer–Supplier interaction. The Retailer places orders of nails and hammers. The Supplier may approve or reject the Retailer’s order. The Retailer acknowledges the decision. Omitting the complexity of the real world, assume that approval instantly increases the Retailer’s inventory.

Figure 10-15. Workspace project configuration

Now look at the Supplier–Manufacturer interaction. The Supplier attempts to fulfill the order from its own storage and reorders the inventory based on a certain threshold. These orders have to be approved or rejected by the Manufacturer. Approval of the order instantly increases the Supplier’s inventory.

Instead of designing one complex process with three participants, however, you can design and coordinate two simple processes with two participants each. The first process is a Retailer–Supplier workflow; the second one is a Supplier–Manufacturer workflow. In fact, our business ...