Return to Main Contents This section covers the administrative default functions which are available through the Expeditor integrator GUI.

Expeditor integrator GUI Overview

The Expeditor integrator provides a self-contained Graphical User Interface framework which can also be used and extended by any custom Expeditor Web Application. The browser-based GUI runs in the Expeditor Web Container and provides a common look and feel to the user.

Per default, Expeditor integrator contributes additional pages to this UI which include the following tools:

• Start page for status overview of the accessed Expeditor integrator instance
• Administrator tool for installation, un-installation, start / stop of components and of the complete runtime
• Monitor tool for displaying current and historical status information of ACS Flows and Adapters.
• Configuration tool for retrieving, editing and deploying the configuration of Expeditor integrator instances (e.g. helps to create the XPDinteg.xml config file)
• Test tool which can be used to run test cases on selected Expeditor integrator instances and MQ-based back-ends.

The Start page is accessible by any user as soon as the GUI functions are installed, started and enabled. The access to the Administrator, Monitor, Configuration and Test tool application pages is secured – user name and password must be provided which match the combination in the configured authentication schema (e.g. the configuration in the Expeditor User Admin Service if the default configuration is used). The role-based ACL is applied by the Expeditor Web Container and must be configured in the web.xml file of each GUI application (Please, refer to chapter 4.5.2 Graphical User Interface Access Configuration for details).

Figure 17 shows deployment options for the Expeditor integrator GUI tools. The GUI is locally accessible with a Web browser that is pointed to http://localhost:8777/ui/home. This way, an Administrator can use the Web browser for controlling, monitoring status, configuring and even testing the local Expeditor integrator instances. For performing end-to-end tests, remote queues of MQ-based messaging back-ends are also accessible from the Test tool.


Figure 17: Expeditor integrator GUI tools and their access areas.

Although, the GUI services are contained in the Expeditor integrator runtime, the Web browser could be pointed to remotely deployed runtimes, too. For example, it may make sense for support personnel to use their Web browser to directly access the Monitor tool page of remote Expeditor integrator instances in order to validate the cause of error events. Also, Administrators can use the Administrator tool page to re-start remote instances.

In addition, this access to remote instances also allows for using a local Expeditor integrator instance for the creation of new configuration files with the Configuration tool. The same applies to testing Expeditor integrator instances in pre-production environments using the local Test tool. Furthermore, if these tests are successful, the tested configuration can be deployed to remote instances using the Configuration tool.

Note: The recommended Web Browser is Mozilla Firefox v2 and v3 (from http://www.mozilla.com). Other Web Browsers may also work – please, be aware that some GUI elements may not be displayed smoothly in those browsers.

GUI Start Page

The Start Page is the common entry point for all Expeditor integrator GUI applications. It is accessible with Web Browser under
http://<location>:8777/ui/home
<location> = hostname or IP address of accessed Expeditor integrator instance

This page is not secured and can be accessed by anybody when the Expeditor integrator GUI components are installed, enabled and started. The Start page shows short status information of the accessed Expeditor integrator instance (see Figure 18).

Figure 18: IBM Lotus Expeditor integrator GUI framework Start page and System Information section in main view.

The upper right corner in the first line of the Start page displays general information of the currently accessed runtime:

• the <Location_id>,
• the hostname and
• date/time since when the runtime is up and running.

The date/time values are displayed in the GMT time zone. Clicking on the little watch icon on the right toggles between GMT and the local time zone of the accessed runtime (see Figure 18). This applies to all other Expeditor integrator tools pages as well.

The main view of the Start Page is separated in different information sections:

• System Information with information about the system on which the Expeditor integrator instance is running (e.g. LocationId, hostname, up time, current heapsize/memory consumption and on disk size of the Expeditor integrator runtime, see Figure 18),
• Flow Statistics with quick overview of running Application Control Flows and their status (see Figure 19),
• Connectivity Status with status overview of configured messaging back-end system connections and Resource Adapter connections (see Figure 20).

Figure 19: Start page main view with Appication Control Service Flow Statistics in Flow Statistics section.

The ACS flow statistic of Figure 19 can also be querried in the Expeditor integrator console (OSGi console) with the following commands:

• showflowsummary
• showflowdetails

Showflowdetails displays more details about the executed flows.

The Connectivity Status section lists the configured micro broker bridge connections (e.g. Back-end-pipe1 in Figure 20) and indicates whether this back-end messaging system is currently accessible.
The different configured Resource Adapters are grouped regarding to their types. The green and red check mark icons show how many adapters are working and how many are experiencing problems (see Figure 20).

Figure 20: Start page main view with Connectivity Status overview section (showing back-end messaging system connections and all configured Resource Adapters).

Note: This connectivity status information can also be retrieved by entering the following commands in the Expeditor integrator console (OSGi console; see chapter 4.3.3 Configuration of Back-end Connectivity through Lotus Expeditor micro broker bridge):

• checkadapterstatus <adaptername>
• checkmsgserverstatus

The Start Page offers an authentication section in the left Navigator view (see Figure 21).


Figure 21: Start page user log-in area. Authenticated users may have access to additional pages of the GUI.

Since Expeditor integrator applications can contribute to the common GUI, it can be configured which GUI application is accessible for a given user (see chapter ‎4.5.2 Graphical User Interface Access Configuration). If user authenticate with authorized username and password combinations, other application pages which are enabled for the authorized user will be displayed as additional tabs (for example Monitor for the Monitoring Tool and Administer for the Administration Tool application in Figure 22).

Figure 22: Start page after authentication of user who is authorized to access additional GUI pages as well (e.g. Monitor, Administer, Configure and Test)

The authorization for the Expeditor integrator Web applications is set in the web.xml of each application deployment unit (plug-in), in the XPDinteg.xml and the chosen user authentication method (The Expeditor User Admin Service is used per default. See chapter ‎4.5.2 Graphical User Interface Access Configuration and section ‎8).

Figure 23 shows the Expeditor integrator Configuration Tool page (Configure tab). The main UI elements are circled:

• Expeditor integrator application tabs: allow quick access to the Expeditor integrator application pages
• Information header: displays information about the currently accessed Expeditor integrator instance (LocationId, hostname and up time with toggle for local time and GMT)
• Help view: displays short help on the selected application
• View Navigator: allows for switching between different (Main) Views.
• View configuration: provides additional configuration options for the (Main) View(s), e.g. refresh rate for the displayed information
• (Main) View: contains the main information of the selected application page
• View details: further details of selected items in the (Main) View are displayed here.

Figure 23: Expeditor integrator GUI elements

It is highly recommended for usability reasons that each Expeditor integrator application uses this common layout.

Administration Tool Page

The Administration Tool allows for managing the Expeditor integrator platform. This includes installing, updating and removing of components (bundles, features and plug-ins) as well as platform control commands.

The Main View in Figure 24 displays the list of installed bundles on the Expeditor integrator instance. Details about the selected bundle are shown in the Details view on the right. The bundle can also be stopped in this view.

The Configuration View on the left side allows for setting the refresh rate and for filtering the bundle list by name.

Figure 24: Expeditor integrator Administration tool page (Overview area displays list of installed bundles. Details are shown on the right of the selected bundle.)

New features can be installed by providing the update site as ZIP file which contains the feature (see Figure 25).

Figure 25: Dialogue for installing an additional feature into the Expeditor integrator runtime.

Further platform administration actions can be selected by clicking on the More platform actions drop down list. The following actions are available (see Figure 26):

• Stop platform: Expeditor integrator platform is stopped (Note: The platform can only be started by running the XPDintegStart.bat/sh or by activating the Expeditor integrator service again. See chapter 5.1 Starting and Stopping Expeditor Integrator).
• Restart platform: starts the Expeditor integrator platform restart ACS Flow.
• Reset platform: starts the Expeditor integrator platform restart flow with the RESET option.
• Uninstall Feature: allows un-installing/removing installed features.
• Housekeeping: kicks off the HouseKeeping Flow.
• Maintainance mode on/off: toggles Maintainance mode on and off.
• ISA Collector: starts the IBM Support Assistant ACS Flow.

Figure 26: Platform actions for the selected Expeditor integrator runtime.

Please, refer to section ‎6 for details about the different available options.

Monitoring Tool Page

The Monitoring Tool provides detailed status information about the accessed Expeditor integrator instance. It offers three different views (see View Navigator in Figure 27):

• Live view: status information is retrieved within the configured refresh interval (The view can be refreshed manually or automatically. Status information can also be kept in the Main view for a given time interval. This is configurable in the Configuration view on the left.)
• Historical view: This view contains all status information which was recorded over the past. The size of the monitored time interval is configured in Persistence Service (see chapter 4.11.3 ‎Persistence Service Configuration).


Note: This is very resource extensive and should only be used under low load.
• Adapters: This view shows the connection status of all configured Resource Adapters and the configured micro broker bridge connections to the back-end messaging system(s).

Figure 27: Expeditor integrator Monitor tool page – “Live view”: System overview and list of running Application Control Service flows.

The Live View includes two sections:

Figure 28: “Live view” monitoring of local Expeditor integrator runtime resources (for example, queues)

The Historical View offers the same information as the Live View, but displays all recorded status information of the past. This is especially for tracking of flows during pre-production and test phases.

The Adapters View in Figure 29 is especially for monitoring the connections to the external systems, for example to:

• the configured messaging back-end system to which the Expeditor integrator instance is bridged to, or to
• FTP servers on 4690 PoS controller which are monitored for files.

Note: All Resource Adapters which are configured (for example, in the XPDinteg.xml) are displayed here.

Figure 29: Monitoring Tool page - "Adapters" view lists status of configured connections to back-end messaging systems and status of configured Resource Adapters (for example, FTP Adapters, SSH Adapters, JDBC Adapters).

Note: Since the Monitoring Tool records all operations of the Expeditor integrator instance in the included Derby database, more resources are required and therefore, operation with monitoring switched on may have significant performance impact. Please, use this tool only in environments with small load.

Configuration Tool Page

The configuration tool provides two configuration areas in the Navigator view:

• Application Control Flows: for application (business) use case configuration in flow definition files
• Properties: configuration settings of Expeditor integrator properties (e.g. set in XPDinteg.xml)

The Application control flows view lists all active flows (see Figure 30). When a single flow is selected further flow specific details are displayed in the Flow details view. The Flow details view offers the following functions:

• View: to view the XML data describing the flow in flow definition files (see Figure 31)
• Export: to save the XML data describing the flow locally
• Remove: to remove this flow from the Expeditor integrator runtime (deletes the flow definition file from the <XPDINTEG_HOME>/flowdefs directory)

Figure 30: Expeditor integrator Configuration tool page – “Application control flows” view lists all deployed ACS flows. Details of the selected flow are displayed in the Flow details view at the right.

Figure 31: Configuration tool page – View button in the right Flow details view of the selected ACS flow shows the XML file content of the flow definition file.

The Application control flows view also allows to import flow definition files and to create new flow definition. To import a valid flow definition file, click the Import button and provide the location of the new flow definition file. The new file will be automatically copied to the flowdefs directory. For creating a new flow, use the Create button. This opens a dialog (see Figure 32). Provide meaningful name, description, the topic of the ACS flow trigger event and the required activities for this flow. All available activities can be chosen from the drop down list. Additional context parameters can be provided for each activity.
Please see ‎Ref_2 chapter 4.13 for supported context parameters.

Figure 32: Create a flow dialog view

The Preview button can be used to view the XML data for the flow. To activate the new flow use the Deploy functionality.

In the second section of the Configuration tool, the configuration data for the Expeditor integrator runtime can be changed (see Figure 33). The drop down list above the left Properties view shows the available configuration sections. These sections reflect the structure in the XPDinteg.xml configuration file. The left Properties view displays the subcategories for each configuration section. Configuration parameters are shown in the right Details view by clicking on the subsections name. The configuration parameters can be customized in the Details view accordingly. Click the OK button for applying the parameters changes in the right Details view. The Preview button opens a Popup window which shows the XML structure for the configured section, including the changes that were already applied. The Add link can be used to add parameters or sections, e.g for adding a State or an Attribute (see Figure 33). The grey cross before or after parameters allows for the deletion of this parameter or section.

Furthermore, the following options are available:

• Import: for importing a config file
• Export: for exporting the current configuration to an external file (if changes have already been applied to the configuration – these changes are reflected in the exported file)
• View: for viewing the current configuration in its XML structure (if changes have already been applied to the configuration – these changes are included in the shown XML structure)
• Deploy: this button is used to deploy the configuration changes to the Expeditor integrator runtime

Figure 33: Configuration tool - "Properties" view lists all properties of the selected section (e.g. properties of section Common). Details of the property are editable in the Details view at the right.

Additional information on the configuration parameters is available in the section Configuration of the Expeditor integrator.

Test Tool Page

The Test application page offers powerful tooling to test the Expeditor integrator. The test tool’s functions are not limited to the Expeditor integrator runtime which hosts the tool. It uses a JMS client and can therefore connect to any MQ backend. The Test tool is intended to be used in development and preproduction environments to run and verify given use cases. With the corresponding back-end messaging server configuration set, the Test tool can send messages to any Expeditor integrator runtime that is also connected to this back-end server.

Figure 34: Expeditor integrator Test tool application page - "Configuration" view allows for entering the connection details of the MQ-based messaging back-end system which is required for optional end-to-end tests.

All available sections are accessible through the Navigator view on the left. More general functions are:

• Configuration: for setting the connection and queue properties of the used messaging back-end
• Monitor Queues: for monitoring selected queues of the messaging back-end (see Figure 34 and Figure 35).

Figure 35: Test tool application page - "Monitor Queues" view displays the headers of the messages in the selected back-end queue. All messages can be deleted by clicking on the Clean Queue button.

The other available functions in the Navigator view allow for executing pre-defined use cases, e.g. sending or requesting files, creating Post request etc. Possible message headers for these use cases can be set individually (see Figure 36). It must be assured that all mandatory message headers properties are provided according to the selected test use case (this also depends on the local configuration of the Expeditor integrator runtime on which the use case is executed.). For example, the file that is to be sent must be selected. The Send Message button is used for sending the created test message to the specified queue of the messaging back-end. The addressed Expeditor integrator runtime will then pick up this test message and processes it accordingly.

Figure 36: Test tool application page - Prepare Message for Sending a File dialog

The Prepare Message for Sending a File dialog in Figure 36 looks similar for the following sections:

• Request file: for sending File request messages
• Browse directory: for sending browse directory requests
• Send config update: for sending config update messages
• Send script: for sending a script file that is locally executed on the operating system of the Expeditor integrator runtime
• Send control message: for sending control messages, for example messages for triggering HouseKeeping or general activation/deactivation of HouseKeeping
• Database: for sending messages with database operations on the Expeditor integrator runtime
• Message forward: for sending messages that are further forwarded to other local queues on the Expeditor integrator runtime

The last two functions in the Navigator view, Rest Post and Rest Get, are different from the others. They allow to send data to Expeditor integrator runtimes using the REST interface of Expeditor integrator rather then the messaging interface. This means, that there is no messaging back-end required for these test cases. The Test tool sends data directly to the specified Expeditor integrator runtime using HTTP. To send data to the REST interface, the Rest Post view of the Test tool application is used. The Rest Get function is provided for checking the result of the previously submitted Rest Post.

In the Rest Post view, all required message header properties for creating the HTTP request can be set (see Figure 37). In addition, connection details, e.g. hostname, port and credentials, of the addressed Expeditor integrator runtime must be provided.

Figure 37: Rest Post section to specify the details of the HTTP request

In the Rest Get view, the status of Rest Posts requests can be checked by providing the TransactionId and connection details, e.g. hostname, port and credentials, of the accessed Expeditor integrator runtime. The Send button sends to the status query of the transaction with the matching TransactionId. The retrieved transaction status is shown in the status field (see Figure 38).

Details about possible values for the messages headers are available in ‎Ref_2 in chapter 2.3 Installation of Expeditor Integrator and following.

Figure 38: Rest Get section for querying the status of a Post request