How can an end user kick off a workflow?

[Twitch]

Hi there EM community,

Are there instructions somewhere on how I can expose an Easymorph project to be run by a business user.

I have several semi complex business reports that I would like to be able to expose for managers so they can get them on demand. I am assuming this can be done via the catalogue? But I haven’t seen any strong instructions around getting it set up.

These are business users who I will never be able to get to download easymorph or get a license. I basically would like to be able to create a workflow and have it exposed so I report can be generated without a lot of fan fair.

We do have Easymorph server. Are there any how to guides on this?

[dgudkov]

Hi Sean,

what is the format of the reports? Is it a file like PDF or Excel, or an external report like Power BI?

[Twitch]

Hi Dmitry,

I am looking at just plain old boring excel as the output format.

How I am working now, is that I create EM workflows and someone has to ping me. I run the EM project and it is set up to drop the file in a cloud storage folder that I retrieve and send to the user, or they retrieve on their own.

It would be nice to have my workflows available to be ran on demand by the end user of the report to get rid of those steps in between. Also, I work for a a global company and some of the end users aren’t starting their day until later in the evening for me. So there is often a day or so lag between when I received their request and when I can deliver the output.

Best-

[bolud]

What are the structure of you network. Do you have access to MS Power Aautomate? Do you have MS Teams? Can you develop a small robot in MS Teams and deploy? Probably the best way is to run the task using webhook.

• I think best way would be an email or team chat based trigger the webhook (running under your user name)
• If you you have other chat applications then you can pretty much create a hook in incoming chat in separate group chat or DM .
• or just add a request to small queue (table) and check the que every minute to run the task

[dgudkov]

You can use computed datasets in the Catalog. They are very much like Server tasks, except they allow downloading the result. This works as follows:

Designate a workflow table as result table

In your workflow, mark the table that contains the result dataset as the result table:

In that table, you don’t have to export to Excel, so you can remove or disable the “Export to Excel” action. The users will be able to choose the file format when they download the result (more on that below).

The result table is marked with a flag (see below).

Create a computed dataset in the Catalog

Now publish your workflow to the Catalog. Before that, you should have the Server Link configured and pointing to your Server. The Catalog should be enabled in the Server space settings (it wasn’t enabled by default in earlier versions of EasyMorph Server).

In the menu “Project” press “Publish to Catalog”.

In the dialog, select “Create new Catalog item”, and the item type should be “Dataset (computed)”.

In the next step, give the new Catalog item a name(1) and provide a short description (3). Optionally, if the workflow has parameters to prompt for, select them in the list (2). Then press “Publish and close” (4).

Congratulations! You’ve created a computed dataset in the Catalog. The project was published to EasyMorph Server and it will produce a dataset every time someone retrieves the Catalog item you’ve just created.

Obtain the report

Now, as a user, log in to the Server. Go to the tab “Catalog” in the space where you created the Catalog item, and press “Retrieve”.

The workflow will be executed, and the result will appear in the list of available results. Press “Download” (1) to retrieve the result. Choose “Excel spreadsheet” as the format (2).

Now the computed dataset is downloaded to your computer as an Excel spreadsheet.

Would that work for you, @Twitch?

[Twitch]

Thank you Dmitry. These instructions help a lot!