EEM - External Event Management

EEM - External Event Management is one of the complementary modules of itmSUITE®. The module is aimed to enable interactions between itmSUITE® and third party applications (interfaces). The supported direction of the data flow is from the external application to itmSUITE® (input). It is possible to define and implement outbound data flow and interfaces by using the action engine component of the itmSUITE®.

Introduction

The module can receive information (inbound messages) with two modes which may be activated at the same time:

• Active channel
• Passive channel

Active channel

In this mode data acquisition is made by means of mails. EEM verifies at regular intervals the existence of mail messages in a configured mailbox and processes them when found.

Passive channel

In this mode, EEM makes available web services in order to acquire data.

EEM processing steps

EEM works on inbound messages received by means of the active or passive channel through a three steps process:

1. EEM processes and validates the incoming message
2. EEM passes processed messages to message bus which, in turn, dispatches them to the recipients (the modules configured to subscribe to the message)
3. itmSUITE® recipient module performs the configured tasks for the received message by means of the action engine

The above mentioned three steps process is illustrated in the figure below.

EEM inbound schema

EEM configuration

The following paragraphs gives an overview of EEM configuration.

Active channel configuration

Using EEM menu Active Notification Channels it is possible to define an active channel which is mapped on an existing mailbox.

The image below shown the parameters needed to configure an active channel.

EEM Active channel

The following parameters shall be provided:

Field	Meaning	Comments
Id	Channel identifier
Name	Channel name
Status	Can be Active or Inactive	If Inactive: EEM will not use it
Logging	If active: more info will be logged in JBOSS log file
Protocol	Different protocols are available: POP3, POP3S, IMAP, IMAPS
Host	URL or IP address of mail server
Port	Port of mail service	Usually: 143 for IMAP, 993 for IMAPS, 110 for POP3 and 995 for POP3S
Authentication Required	Check it if mail server requires authentication
Username	Login to access mail server
Password	Password to access mail server
Email	email address
Advanced Properties	Properties used by secure Protocols

Passive channel configuration

There is no specific configuration for passive channels.

Monitoring system configurations

A monitoring system configuration tells EEM what to do in the very first step (processing and validating an inbound message).

For each monitoring system configuration there are two configuration screens, one for general settings and one for specific parameters. The General configuration is shown in the screen below.

EEM MSC General Configuration

The following parameters shall be provided:

Field	Meaning	Comments
Id	The identifier of the MSC.	Automatically assigned by the system.
Name	The name of the MSC.	Mandatory field.
Type
Status	The status of the MSC.	If "Active", the MSC is processed.
Active Channels Available	If set, it means the MSC is available for active channels (all).	This also enables the following two depending parameters.
Email Identification Strategy	The strategy used to determine if the MSC shall be applied to the mail.
Email Identification Value	The value which is searched in the mail when applying the identification strategy. If found, the MSC is applied to the mail.
Passive Channels Available	If set, it means the MSC is available for passive channel	This also enables the following depending parameter.
Request Identification Tag

Parameters configuration is shown in the screen below.

EEM MSC Parameter Configuration

The following details shall be provided for each parameter:

Field	Meaning	Comments
Id	Parameter identifier	Automatically assigned by system
Name	Parameter name	It will be matched with incoming Parameters: mail or web service calling shall contain all an only the parameters defined in MSC. If any parameter is missing or not matched --> no itmSUITE Message is forwarded to MB
Description
Aliases	Here can be defined one or more Aliases for current Parameter: all of them will be added in itmSUITE Message by EEM

Name is searched in the incoming message body for each parameter. The content following Name is assigned as value of the parameter.

An inbound message is acceptende only if the identification strategy is matched or the identification tag is found all the parameters are present into the body of message.

Examples

Open a Ticket from mail

To achieve the aim of current example the following configurations shall be done: 1. MB: an itmSUITE Message with type "Generate Emails" shall be scheduled in MBù

In Message Scheduler Management add a new Message
Set "Message Publisher" as Message Bus Scheduler
Set "Message Type" as Generate Emails
Set a valid cron string (example: 0/10 * * * * ? will send a Message to EEM every 10 sec)

2. EEM: shall subscribes to "Generate Emails" message 3. An Active Channel shall be configured in EEM (see above) 4. A MSC with type "Email Forward" 5. An Action shall be created and activated in PMSM on event "Incoming Mail"

MB: Schedule a "Generate Emails" message

The important part of a scheduled message is the "Cron Expression". It define the interval time between messages generation.

Cron expression example: 0/10 * * * * ?

Is possible to found more example here: http://www.quartz-scheduler.org/documentation/quartz-2.x/tutorials/crontrigger.html

PMSM Action

The action "Incoming Mail" can be used to manage an itmSUITE Message generated by an incoming mail.

Web Services syntax

TBC