Kuali Rice Technical Overview

February 2011

Components of Rice

KEW Kuali Enterprise Workflow

KNS Kuali Nervous System

KRAD Kuali Rapid Application Development

(KRAD replaces KNS)

KSB Kuali Service Bus

KIM Kuali Identity Management

KRMS Kuali Rules Management System

KEN Kuali Enterprise Notification(KEN is a rarely used component)

UI:: Provides UI Framework – KNS/KRAD

Services:: Provides key middleware Services for Identity Management (KIM), Enterprise Workflow (KEW), Rules Management System (KRMS), Organization Management (future)

Service Bus:: Provides Enterprise Service Bus (KSB) on which KS Services are hosted

Role of Rice Middleware

Rice Architecture

Rice Deployment Architectures

Stand-alone: a central hub and spoke model Good if you just want to support one Rice server Centralized services and features Best for non-Java clients

Embedded: a decentralized, federated approach Fast for developers because services are local Distributes load; technically a clustered model Provides distributed transactions (via JTA)

Hybrid: best of both

Component: KSB

KSB Goals

1. Enable applications and services deployed on the bus to interact with other applications and services

2. Provide (a)synchronous communication

3. Provide flexible security

4. Provide Quality of Service (QoS)

5. Keep it simple (light weight)

A lightweight service bus

Typically, KSB programming is centered on exposing Spring-configured beans to other calling code using a number of different protocols.

You deploy services to the bus either using the Spring tool or programmatically

Services must be named when they are deployed to the bus

Services are acquired from the bus using their name

KSB Highlights

KSB Architecture

KSB Communication Models

Synchronous = P2P : waits for a response

Asynchronous = messaging : fire and forget : possible callback

Queues = single service retrieved from redundant set of services; only one invoked

Topics = all services retrieved from redundant set of services; all invoked

KSB Security

Bus level : option to digitally sign, encrypt

Service level security through Acegi Service level, method level User proxying through standard security models (i.e. CAS,

Kerberos) Security context passed along (user, authn token, roles) Services can call authn/authz authority to validate context

Component: KNS/KRAD

KNS/KRAD Overview

KNS/KRAD provides a toolkit with which to build the User Interface (UI) and connect it to Services

Contains UI guidelines for a common look and feel

Provides out-of-the-box ways to workflow enable the information processed by the UI (“document” is a commonly used term for workflow enabled forms)

KNS/KRAD Transactional Documents

These are data-entry centric documents or “transactions” that model the business processes

Examples include: Proposal Development, Journal Entry, Payment Reimbursement

Built on a case by case basis using the Kuali Rice tag libraries (encompass snippets of UI behavior): Notes and attachments Workflow route log (audit log)

Integrated with workflow

KNS/KRAD Maintenance Documents

They do not need to be built case by case - just one JSP that draws them all

These are the CRUD documents - an easy way to maintain support tables in a Kuali database C: Create new table records R: Read or query table records U: Update existing table records D: Delete existing table records

Examples include: Budget rates Project codes

KNS Architecture

CHART_TChart

(POJO)

ORMMappin

gData

Dictionary

Lookups and

Inquiries

MaintenanceDocuments

TransactionalDocuments

Workflow(KEW)

KRAD Architecture

KRAD Technology• Spring MVC

• Spring Beans and Expression Language

• Apache Tiles as the templating engine

• Fluid Skinning System for CSS

• jQuery as the javascript library

• Including jQuery UI

• And other plugins providing functionality like AJAX

More information about Rice KRAD at https://wiki.kuali.org/display/KULRICE/Kuali+Rice+Release+Documentation

KNS/KRAD Feature: Inquiries

A way to drill down and get more read-only information about a table record

Inquiry Example Configuration

<inquiry>

<title>Travel Account Inquiry</title>

<inquirySections>

<inquirySection title="Travel Account">

<inquiryFields>

<field attributeName="number" forceInquiry="true" />

<field attributeName="name" />

<field attributeName="accountType" />

<field attributeName="foId" forceInquiry="true" />

</inquiryFields>

</inquirySection>

</inquirySections>

</inquiry>

KNS/KRAD Feature: Lookups

A way to search for data by a set of criteria

Results of lookups can be returned to other lookups or documents

Lookup Example

<lookup>

<title>Travel Account Lookup</title>

<instructions>Look up Inst.</instructions>

<defaultSort sortAscending="true">

<sortAttributes>

<sortAttribute attributeName="number" />

</sortAttributes>

</defaultSort>

Lookup Example Cont. <lookupFields>

<lookupField attributeName="number" required="false" />

<lookupField attributeName="name" required="false" />

<lookupField attributeName="accountType" required="false" />

<lookupField attributeName="foId" required="false"

forceLookup="true" />

</lookupFields>

<resultFields>

<field attributeName="number" forceInquiry="true" />

<field attributeName="name" forceInquiry="true" />

<field attributeName="accountType" forceInquiry="true" />

<field attributeName="foId" forceInquiry="true" />

</resultFields>

</lookup>

Other KNS/KRAD Features

Data Dictionary

Question component

Notes and attachments

Pluggable business rules

Pluggable authorizations

System parameters

Extended/custom attributes

KRAD Screenshots

• KNS Look and Feel - http://bit.ly/tKDhKa

• KS Look and Feel - http://bit.ly/rYCDQy

• See lots of other examples by going to the “Kitchen Sink” at http://demo.rice.kuali.org

• Log in as “admin” user

Component: KEW

KEW Overview

Facilitates routing and approval of business processes throughout an organization

Provides re-usable routing rule creation which defines how business processes should be routed Bind business data to users/groups that must approve

Provides hooks for client applications to handle workflow lifecycle events of business processes

End users interact with central workflow GUIs for all client applications

Content-based routing engine (“workflow”)

Flow User creates a document from a process definition 

User submits it to the workflow engine

Engine makes routing decisions based on the XML content of the document

KEW is a set of services, APIs, and GUIs with these features: Action List for each user, also known as a user’s work list

Document searching

Route log: Document audit trail

Flexible process definition: Splits, joins, parallel branches, sub-processes, dynamic process generation

Rules engine

Email notification

Notes and attachments

Wide array of pluggable components to customize routing and other pieces of the system

eDocLite: Framework for creating simple documents quickly

Plugin architecture: Packaging and deployment of application plugins or deployment of routing components to the Rice standalone server at runtime

KEW Highlights

Document Search Screen Shot

Action List Screen Shot

Route Log Screen Shot

Component: KIM

KIM Overview

Kuali Identity Management is a misnomer

KIM does not manage identity

Instead it sits between a Identity Management System (IdMS) and your application to provide security related functions to your application Authentication Authorization

It abstracts the proprietary nature of any IdMS and provides a Kuali Standard interface to IdMS

Provides identity and access management services 

KIM services are available on the service bus with both SOAP and Java serialization endpoints

Provides a set of GUIs that you can use to maintain identity information

Provides reference implementation of Identity related Services Read-only services:

IdentityService

GroupService

PermissionService

RoleService

ResponsibilityService

AuthenticationService

Update services that allow write operations A permission service that evaluates permissions: KIM provides plug points for

implementing custom logic for permission checking, such as permission checks based on hierarchical data.

KIM Highlights

KIM Architecture

KIM Concepts

Basic concepts Namespace (i.e. Application, any generic context)

Person - different default “sponsored” attributes for each namespace context; core shared attributes as well

Group - simply groups users; arbitrary data associated with them

Permissions - ability to perform actions

Roles - cross context capabilities; aggregates permissions (i.e. fiscal officer, dean, etc)

Qualified Roles - specific to a context fiscal officer for organization XYZ

dean for the College of ABC

administrators for the College of ABC <-- this one’s a group

Component: KRMS

KRMS is a general-purpose business rules engine

Supports the management and execution of business rules needed for business processes

Used to define a set of rules within a particular business unit or for a particular set of applications. These business rules test for certain conditions and define the set of actions that result when conditions are met. KRMS enables you to call and use this logic from any application, without having to re-write and manage all the rules' logic within the application.

Example, you can define a rule to specify that when an account is closed, a continuation account must be specified. You can also define rules to manage your organizational hierarchies and internal structures. You can define compound rule logic, for example, "Must meet": P1 - 12 credits of FirstYearScience (CLU set)

AND

P2 - Completed CALC101 with grade >= B+

AND

p3 - Average of B+ on last 12 credits

KRMS

Rice 2.0 Documentation

http://site.kuali.org/rice/2.0.0-rc2/reference/html/Intro_To_Rice.html#d967e295

Kuali Days 2011 Presentations

https://wiki.kuali.org/display/KULRICE/Kuali+Days+2011+presentations

Rice More Information