Professional K2 blackpearl®

Chapter 7. Building and Using SmartObjects

Jason Apergis

One of the newest and most significant features of the K2 platform is SmartObjects. SmartObjects provide process designers the ability to provision data from line-of-business (LOB) data sources in a drag-and-drop fashion. Now that data is more accessible, business users can make more informed and better decisions in their workflows. Also, business processes can be built using SmartObjects, which focus on management of data itself. The SmartObject framework is not scoped to K2 blackpearl; SmartObjects can be used with all applications that participate in a process, even disparate ones on different platforms. When using SmartObjects, designers now have the ability to gain access to data that resides in Active Directory, SharePoint, SQL Server, Oracle, SAP, and so on and to build business objects using data harvested from these locations. The SmartObject framework is also extremely flexible, as it provides the ability to create composite views from any LOB application. For instance, a designer may create a composite employee SmartObject that uses data from both Active Directory and a human resources database.

In addition to providing a framework in which data services can be written, K2 blackpearl provides a designer tool that allows for rapid construction of SmartObjects. There are visual design tools for building, deploying, and maintaining SmartObjects. These tools literally enable a designer to author fully functional SmartObjects ...