OPEN TEXT Exstream Command

Center(OPEN TEXTCC)
Purpose
The purpose of this documentation is to provide an overview to the features of OPEN TEXT
Exstream Command Center and Delivery Manager Implementation.

Overview
 OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center enables automated job scheduling
configured specifically around your OPEN TEXT Exstream application
requirements.
 OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center facilitates the quick and easy deployment
of OPEN TEXT Exstream by allowing administrators to set delivery parameters for
nearly any production environment—even when printing is outsourced.
 OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center is a single platform that integrates with
the OPEN TEXT Exstream production engine, providing the capability to integrate
and automate OPEN TEXT Exstream-related processes with other enterprise
document processing systems.
 For example, OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center lets you sort customer
records using a custom approach or gather additional data by executing external
programs before composing OPEN TEXT Exstream documents. It offers a wide
range of unique capabilities to support automated document processing and
printing requirements through an easily defined and repeatable environment.

OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center 2.1

OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center has two main components: a server and Web-based
Graphical User Interface (Web GUI).

 Server - core part of OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center that supports multiple
client interfaces. It is a stand-alone Java application providing a variety of job
management services which can be run as a Windows service or UNIX daemon.
 The Web GUI allows users to define, manage, schedule, and configure job
notifications. The graphical interface provides a visual representation that allows to
depict user-defined job cycles and the logical job flow. It is an AJAX-based Web
application running on any Java-enabled Web container (such as Apache Tomcat and
IBMWebSphere) and is accessible through a Web browser.
Logging in to OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center Web GUI

1. Open your browser and enter the URL (for example,http://<hostname>:<port>/).

The OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center login screen appears.

2. Enter the user name and password.

3. Server Name: The value of Server Name is automatically selected by Web GUI,
depending upon the RMI set up during OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center
installation.
4. After a successful login, we can access the OPEN TEXT Exstream Command
Center control panel listing the jobs. For a fresh OPEN TEXT Exstream Command
Center installation there are no jobs listed.
OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center Entities
The entities form an integral part of OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center document
processing are:

 Job - describes a unit of work which contains a pre-defined set of stages, known as
phases, that either the OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center administrator or job
scheduler provides to the server to execute. For example Collecting the customer
data records
Mapping the files and variables to be passed on to OPEN TEXT Exstream production
engine, Writing a custom sort program, Composing the document using engine to
generate required composed output, Delivering the composed document to the file
system.
 Phases - Each of these activities forms a unique stage and is described as “Phases”.
 Job Definition - A set of Phases define the blue print of the job execution path
known as “Job Definition” or “Job life cycle”.
 Control flow elements - A job life cycle can be linear or non-linear in its execution.
Linear jobs execute the defined phases one after another in a sequential order until
the last phase of the job life cycle is reached. Non-linear jobs result in multiple
execution paths based on certain “Conditions”. For example, if the number of
records in customer file is “more than 500”, then the composed output is sent to a
printer. If the number of records in the customer file is “less than or equal to 500”,
the composed output is created as a PDF for electronic delivery. These conditions or
decision points in OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center are known as "Control
Flow Elements" and, together with phases, comprise the job life cycle.
 Delivery Queues - Delivery Queues are means of delivering output using set of pre-
defined and configured transports such as LPR, FTP, JMS, and File Folder.
 Real-Time Apps - are ways in which OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center user can
create and run on demand document composition.
 Schedules - help the OPEN TEXTCC user to schedule and automate the execution of
batch jobs. The schedules are run on a periodic intervals.
 Notifications - are means by which the event based messages can be sent to
different destinations such as to JMS queue, to users using email or SMS, to an
SNMP server, and so on, using pre-defined channels from OPEN TEXTCC
 Configuration - helps administrator to manage users, their roles and permissions, to
manage and set up multiple versions of engines for composition, and also provides
general information regarding OPEN TEXTCC system set up.
 Help - provides the instant help for a topic.
Job Definition
Job Definition tab is the tab where we can create a job from the scratch

OPEN TEXTCC provides by default eight templates for the administrator to quick start
with
defining a job life cycle. The template defines the pre-set phases for a job life cycle.
 Live Correspondence is a life cycle designed specifically for jobs using interactive
documents
 Custom Life Cycle is a simple job life cycle flow used to run an external program.
It has the following phases: file management, external program, delivery, and
clean up.
 Normal life cycles are defined for creating documents with OPEN TEXT Exstream
production engine and it contains composition phases.
 Normal One Step is a life cycle with one composition phase. It contains the
following phases: File Management, Pre-processing, First Composition, Post-
processing, Delivery, and Clean-up. You can execute an external program in pre-
processing and post-processing phases.
 Normal Two Step is similar to Normal One-Step, but with composition split into
two steps. In the first composition phase, sort-files are created. A special sorting
phase follows that sorts the sort files. The second composition phase then
creates the output. OPEN TEXT Exstream application package must be built with
OPEN TEXT Exstream output queues for two step life cycle.
 Real time is identical to the Normal One Step life cycle, except that instead of
composition phase running engine in batch mode is document composition run
by real-time application.
  Bundle life cycles enables consolidation of the information from multiple
package files to produce a single output file. Bundle is set of jobs where exactly
one Job is of type "Bundle Parent" and other Jobs are of type "Bundle Child".
 Bundle Parent is a life cycle of a job in the bundle parent role.
 Bundle Child is a life cycle of a job in the bundle child role.
 Assured Delivery life cycle helps to ensure the delivery of a document, using
OPEN TEXT Exstream Delivery Engine. If a regular delivery channel fails, then a
document is delivered through the preferred alternate channel. The Assured
Delivery life cycle consists of the following phases:
 Variable Assignment
 File Manipulation (File Management)
 Pre-Processing (External Program)
 Primary Composition (First Composition)
 Primary Delivery
 Waiting for Delivery Report (Wait Condition)
 Check for Delivery Report Failure (Branch Condition)
 Pre-Processing for Alternate Composition (External Program
 Alternate Composition (First Composition)
 Alternate Delivery
 Check Pending Delivery Reports condition (Jump Condition)
 Post-Processing (External Program)
 Clean-up

NOTE: The Assured Delivery template is displayed in the New Job

Definition window, only if you have OPEN TEXT Exstream Delivery Manger
license.

Selecting the blank or any of above template opens following window

Job Definition Properties
Describes the job definition properties specific to a job life cycle.

 Name—this property refers to the name of the job definition.

 Default Priority—refers to default priority of jobs created from this job definition.
 Engine name—Select the name of the OPEN TEXT Exstream production engine as the
default production engine for this job definition.
 Bundling Type—Specifies type of the job definition and the life-cycle. You cannot
edit this property, when a default template is selected.
 Job Delivery Type—Specifies the delivery type of the job definition and the life-cycle.
This field will be displayed if the Job Bundling Type is "Normal". This is non-editable,
when a default template is selected. For blank template, user has to select this
property and on "Save" of such job definition, this property is not editable further.
Possible values are:
• Fire And Forget—This type of job routes the delivery requests to the OPEN
TEXT Exstream Command Center delivery queues.
• Assured Delivery—This type of job routes the delivery requests to the
Delivery Engine. When the delivery fails in the customer Preferred Delivery
channel, the document is sent for delivery through the business preferred
channel.
 Job Request Type—Specifies the Job Request Type of the Job definition. The field
shall only be displayed if the Job delivery type selected is "Assured Delivery".
Possible values are:
 • Batch—This is the recommended Job request type for processing a batch or
a set of customer records.
• On Demand—This is recommended for processing a single customer record
and to get the delivery response from the delivery engine in synchronous
manner.

Variables
 Variables are used for synchronization. A life cycle might contain "Conditions" that
must be fulfilled in order to finish the execution of a phase. You can create
conditions which will block the phase until a specified variable has a specified value.
 Clicking on add will open following window

 Select the appropriate data type for e.g. for data file report file, reference file select
the data type as file. For the varset variable in which you are going to send a string
value send it as a String.
  And deselect the lock value to make sure that you can override the the paths that
you pass from an external environment.

Phases
 In a job life cycle, phase represents a one step and it is performed as a transaction
and therefore, every time OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center server crashes (for
example, power outage, internal error and so on) it will rollback the transaction and
continue from the last well-defined phase. There are many phases defined in OPEN
TEXT Exstream Command Center and a set of phases forms a job life cycle.
 You can add new phases to the life cycle during configuration of a job definition.

 In above screenshot you can see various types of phases available in OPEN TEXTCC
like File Management, Files Collection, External Program, Variable Assignment etc.
Composition Phase Type (First Composition)

 In Composition phase type, the OPEN TEXT Exstream production engine is executed
performing first composition as defined in the OPEN TEXT Exstream package. It
creates a control file containing all information passed to engine. You can define the
variables to be exported to the engine.

 In below screenshot you can see how various fields are set.

 Below Screenshot depicts the phase above created being getting added to Job Life
Cycle
Jobs
A job in OPEN TEXT Exstream Command Center is a unique entity with its own life cycle, job
definition properties, and runtime state. A job has several phases and different actions are
executed in each phase. The most important part of a job life cycle is composition. In the
composition, a formatted output (such as PDF, PostScript, or HTML)is generated from the
input files.

The jobs control screen consists of the following:

 Job Operations
 Jobs
 Job Properties

Job Page appears as follows

In the left navigation panel, Click New Job. The Create New Job dialog opens.

From the Select Job Definition drop-down list, select the required job definition

Schedule
 Schedule is a mechanism to execute various actions at a given time or at regular
intervals.

 Creating New Schedule

Few attributes are explained as follows

 Type—There are two predefined schedule types namely One-Time and Recurring.
 One -Time is for running actions at a given date or time.

Example: Jan 20, 2010 10:49:51 AM

 Recurring is for running actions periodically (for example, each Sunday at midnight).
 Active—Specifies if the schedule is active. The action will not be executed unless this
option is selected.
 Action Type—Specifies the action type. The type includes Others and Cleanup. The
default option is Others.

Action Type: Others

 [Nested] Action: The action which should be executed in XML format.

 Action XML is an XML built according to the XML 1.0 standards and on a DTD that is
in sync with the OPEN TEXT Command center.
 When Command Center is installed in UNIX environment then few active directories
are set in the environment.

Few active directories are

 Directory where the action XML will automatically be consumed

 Directory where the response of the action XML is collected
  If any issue with the syntax of the action XML then the folder where the XML is
redirected to
 Job Folder-there is a folder automatically gets created when Command center is
installed under /var/jobs/{jobid}.
 For each job you run on command center a folder corresponding to the jobid gets
creates in the backend.

How Action XML works

 As soon as we drop the XML into the active directory that can consume it, it does the
XML validation and starts running the job.
 If job is completed successfully then it places a reponse XML in the response folder.
 If the XML validation fails then it redirects the XML to the corrupt folder.
 If the job whole running fails then we can check for the issue that failed the job and
fix it. After fixing the job we can wither resubmit the job or we can restart the job
from the particular phase where it had failed.
 Please note that we can perform various operations like Resubmit or Restart the job
by changing the type parameter in the action XML.

Action XML Structure

<?xml version="1.0" encoding=“UTF-8"?>

<action xmlnamespace declarations>

<type>CREATE_JOB</type>

<attributes>

<attribute name=“job definition name” value=“TestJob”\>

<map>

<entry name=“DD:DRIVER”><value>/Test/Input/driver.dat</value></entry>

<entry name=“DD:INIT”><value>/Test/Input/init.dat</value></entry>
<entry name=“DD:REFERENCE”><value>/Test/Input/referencefile.dat</value></entry>

<entry name=“DD:REPORT”><value>/Test/Report/report.dat</value></entry>

<entry name=“FilePath”><value>/Test/Output/</value></entry>

</map>

</attributes>

</action>

Running a script through a phase

 Suppose I have a script that is needed to perform some post processing tasks.
 Script needs a parameter “RUNDATE” as a parameter so that it can search for the
files created on a particular date and perform some operation on them.
 Then we can add one more variable to the job level named “RUNDATE” with a data
type as String and then we can pass the value for the same from the action XML.
<entry name=“RUNDATE”><value>20140909</value></entry>
Creating Notifications
 We can create Notifications for particular jobs and also for particular phases
of a job when they complete successfully or they fail.
 We can create notifications in the EMAIL or SMS channel.
Configuring Engine
Shared Phases
 If we have multiple jobs using the same phase i.e. the same parameter list then if
there are some changes then if we have saved the phase to be a shared phase then
changing it in one place will be reflected in all the places.
Export and Import Jobs