Groovy Service Introduction

Abbreviation used in the document:

The following terms and phrases are commonly used in the context of Groovy Service. Each of them is followed by a brief description and it may include a link to more in-depth documentation of that subject.

Groovy Scripts in Digital Sales Platform

The Digital Sales Platform supports scripting using the Apache Groovy language. The groovy script can be executed automatically when a particular supported action (called extension point) is performed, for example when the user created a Quote or updated the value of a field. Details about each extension point will be given in the rest of this document.

Generally, there are two use cases for scripts in the application:

• It can be used for creating custom functionality in the system. For example, you may discover that there are some sets of actions that you wish to perform repeatedly and automatically. As these actions may be quite specific to your workflow or company, it would not make sense for such functionality to be implemented in the base software. Instead, this can be done using a custom script.
• It can be used for features whose usage depends on the specific business logic that will be unique for each company. This business logic can be encapsulated within a custom script.

In all cases where a feature is developed using the groovy script, the feature is treated as a custom program and hence its maintenance falls on the customer system.

Groovy

Apache Groovy is a programming language that is often used for scripting, designed for the Java platform. Any java code can be used as a groovy script, but it also has a concise, readable, and easy-to-learn alternative syntax. Thus, it is easy for both experienced Java programmers as well as newcomer to use it. It is dynamically compiled to Java virtual machine (JVM) bytecode and interoperates seamlessly with other Java code and libraries used by the application.

A Groovy script can have any file extension, but by convention, it should be given the “groovy” file extension. As the script will be compiled into a Java-compatible class during runtime, the filename should also meet the criteria of a Java class. Please refer to official Java documentation (such as https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/variables.html) for the details on this restriction.

Tools

Any text editor or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) can be used to develop the groovy script. However, note that at this point there is no support for any IDE to allow for automatic code completion for the custom classes. If you intend to do cloud debugging (see section 5 Debugging Groovy Scripts), you will need an Eclipse IDE.

API Documentation

Please refer to http://groovy-lang.org/ for further information and documentation about writing groovy scripts in general. Please refer to https://in-mind-cloud.github.io/content/groovy-doc/ for the Javadoc for the custom classes and available API.

Binding Variables

Depending on the extension point, certain variables are automatically made to be available inside the script. These are called binding variables. Some binding variables are available to all scripts, while others are only available to specific extension points. For example, extension points related to Quote will automatically have a variable representing the Quote’s data called salesItemsTree. The script can immediately make use of this variable to query information or make changes to the Quote and its sales items.

The list of binding variables that are available for each extension point is described within this document. However, it is also possible to get the list of available binding variables within the script itself. As an example, the following script will obtain the class and name for all available binding variables and output it to a notification message.

def sb = new StringBuilder();
binding.variables.each{
    sb.append('(' + it.value.getClass().getName() + ') ')
      .append(it.key)
      .append("\n");
}
groovyLogger.notifyInfo(sb.toString());

Common Binding Variables

The following are the common binding variables available to all extension points:

Uploading a New Groovy Script

1. Login to ISS with administrator right, go to Administration > Master Data Management. Search with groovy and then selects the Groovy Script.
2. The list of currently existing Groovy Scripts will be shown.
3. For some extension points, there can only be one script for it in the system, which would have been pre-created, and thus you can only edit the existing Groovy Script. For other extension points, you can either create a new Groovy Script or edit existing ones.

   To create a new Groovy Script, click on the Plus button.  A new empty row will be added at the top of the list.

4. Click on the relevant groovy script to edit its data. The relevant fields are:

Note: Groovy scripts can be enabled to run as a system task in the background