h1. Flowable User Interface

Flowable provides several web applications to demonstrate and leverage the functionality provided by the Flowable project. These web applications can be used with a Petals-SE-Flowable instance.

h2. UI Applications

Flowable offers four web applications enbaling Flowable engine monitoring:
* Flowable IDM
* Flowable Modeler
* Fowable Task
* Flowable Admin

The Flowable User Interface does not need the four web applications to work correctly. In our case we will only use Flowable IDM and Flowable Admin:
* Flowable-IDM: an Identity Management application that provides single sign-on authentication functionality for all the Flowable UI applications, and, for users with the IDM administrative privilege, it also provides functionality to manage users, groups and privileges.
* Flowable Admin: an administrative application that allows users with admin privilege to query the BPMN, DMN, form and content engines and provides several options to change process instances, tasks, jobs and so on. The admin application connects to the engines through the REST API that is deployed with the Petals-SE-Flowable instance.

h2. Flowable UI Admin Installation

Here, you can find some information to install Flowable UI Admin linked with a Flowable engine embedded into a Petals SE Flowable. More information about Flowable UI Admin can be found into the [Flowable's documentation|http://www.flowable.org/documentation.html].

For our sample installation, the required configuration is:
* a working Apache Tomcat installation. Apache Tomcat can be downloaded at : [http://tomcat.apache.org/],
* a Petals container where the Petals SE Flowable is running,
* the Flowable's REST API is enabled on the Petals SE Flowable.

And download the Flowable's distribution whose the version is the same as the Flowable engine embedded into Petals SE Flowable. This version can be downloaded at : [http://www.flowable.org/downloads.html].

{note}
Petals SE Flowable must be configured with a database reachable by external clients. So, using an in-memory or embedded database can be troubling.
{note}

h3. Installation

Flowable UI Admin requires Flowable UI IDM for its identity management that's why it is needed to deploy both webapplications.

Configuration of Flowable UIs is defined in two properties files
# '{{flowable-ui-app.properties}}' located in Tomcat classpath ({{$TOMCAT_HOME.lib}} or {{/var/lib/tomcatX/lib/}} according to your Tomcat's installation). Create it with the following content:
{code}
# Flowable engine REST API embedded into the Petals SE Flowable
rest.process.app.name=Flowable engine REST API
rest.process.app.description=Flowable engine REST API embedded into the Petals SE Flowable
rest.process.app.host=0.0.0.0
rest.process.app.port=8089
rest.process.app.contextroot=flowable-rest-api
rest.process.app.restroot=/
rest.process.app.user=rest-api-user
rest.process.app.password=user-api-rest-password

idm.app.url=http://localhost:8080/flowable-idm
idm.admin.user=admin
idm.admin.password=test
{code}
# '{{db.properties}}' located in Tomcat classpath ({{$TOMCAT_HOME.lib}} or {{/var/lib/tomcatX/lib/}} according to your Tomcat's installation). Create it with the following content:
{code}
db=h2
datasource.driver=org.h2.Driver
datasource.url=jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost//tmp/h2-flowable.db
datasource.username=sa

Next, install the Flowable UI Admin deploying the WAR file '{{flowable-admin.war}}' available in the Flowable's distribution archive with the Tomcat manager ([http://localhost:8080/manager]). Check this installation going to [http://localhost:8080/flowable-admin] and login with a user having an admin role. You should be able to manage Flowable.

{warning}
If you use a h2 database, you have to change the version of the H2 JDBC Driver embedded in Flowable UI web applications to be aligned with the one used by Petals SE Flowable:
* Get the convenient jar file at: [https://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=com/h2database/h2/1.4.178/h2-1.4.178.jar].
* Go inside '{{/var/lib/tomcatX/webapps/flowable-idm/WEB-INF/lib}}' or '{{$TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/flowable-idm/WEB-INF/lib}}' and delete h2-1.3.176.jar file.
* Copy the downloaded h2 jar file in this directory.
* Go inside '{{/var/lib/tomcatX/webapps/flowable-admin/WEB-INF/lib}}' or '{{$TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/flowable-admin/WEB-INF/lib}}' and delete h2-1.3.176.jar file.
* Copy the downloaded h2 jar file in this directory.