OFBiz workflow Learning (1)

1. Overview of OFBiz

OFBiz is a well-known open-source project that provides the creation of large and medium-sized enterprises based on the latest J2EE/XML specifications and technical standards.Enterprise,Cross-platform,Cross-Database,Cross-Application ServerMulti-layer, distributed e-commerce web application system framework.
OFBiz provides a complete set of Java-based Web application components and tools. It includes the entity engine, service engine, message engine, workflow engine, and rule engine.

2 system composition and hierarchy

1) several major engines

Entity engine, service engine, message engine, workflow engine, rule engine, etc;

The bottom layer is the entity engine and service engine, and the workflow engine is based on these two engines.

2) several applications

The following lists the application names and directories:

Content Management

User Management partymgr

Market Management Marketing

Catalog Management catalog

Device management facility

Ordermgr (workflow engine used)

Account Management Accounting

Human Resource Management workeffort

System Management WebTools

3. Analysis of features of the workflow module

1) based on feedback from OFBiz developers on the Internet, the OFBiz workflow engine can meet the functional requirements of most users. The performance is also good. However, its user base mainly comes from other modules.

2) based on research and code analysis, OFBiz code is more complex. For developers who want to use OFBiz to develop workflows, it is not only a pure workflow engine, but also a development platform and tool set, its various modules have many intersections (for example, the startup process does not call the workflow engine interface, but the entity engine and service engine interfaces), and the Code is large.

Another manifestation of complexity is that the presentation layer of OFBiz uses a large number of custom taglib, the business logic layer uses its own independent page flow control logic, and the persistence layer is implemented by the entity engine, none of them adopt common methods.

3) The full version of the database has more than 500 tables, and the limit version (self-built version for workflow) database has more than 170 tables.

4) The workflow engine of OFBiz has been used by users, and other modules have been applied in many industries. However, its workflow engine is still in alpha version.