ruote tmp/log_2011-03-24.html

2011-03-24 07:36:08 utc jmettraux tosch_le: hello, how are you doing ?
2011-03-24 07:37:25 utc tosch_le fine, thanks. overloaded with work, though. how are you?
2011-03-24 07:38:56 utc jmettraux doing fine, not too overloaded, some of the work I couldn't take with me
2011-03-24 07:39:21 utc jmettraux I just pushed a ruote-kit change (the new StorageParticipant#proceed) feel free to merge when you have time
2011-03-24 07:56:15 utc tosch_le specs are green, pushed. thanks!
2011-03-24 07:56:25 utc jmettraux :-)
2011-03-24 10:18:23 utc gregormelhorn Hello everybody! I got a question to ruote, hope somebody is willing to help :) I am trying to integrate ruote into a CRM system / callcenter. I now have a queue of all the customers waiting for their case to be processed, and whenever a callcenter agent clicks on a "get next customer" button, I want him to get the next "open" customer, that would be the best match for him based on certain criteria (method of payment, product type and so on). From wh
2011-03-24 10:18:24 utc gregormelhorn I have seen, ruote is more for "push" workflow systems, how do I handle such a "pull" workflow?
2011-03-24 10:20:17 utc tosch_le i'd use the StorageParticipant for that
2011-03-24 10:20:59 utc tosch_le your queue is a kind of worklist which is handled by the storage participant
2011-03-24 10:22:26 utc gregormelhorn ok, so the storage participant is a kind of "assign customer" participant that would know which customer to pick for a certain agent.
2011-03-24 10:22:42 utc gregormelhorn how do I make that work on request of the callcenter agent?
2011-03-24 10:24:20 utc jmettraux there is no push or pull in ruote
2011-03-24 10:24:36 utc tosch_le no, the storageparticipant is dumb: it just has a list of open cases which should get done by an agent
2011-03-24 10:25:09 utc tosch_le you can query the storage participant in a model of yours and let that decide which task you be assigned to which agent
2011-03-24 10:25:38 utc gregormelhorn hmm, obviously I have problems of getting into the mindset of ruote :(
2011-03-24 10:26:06 utc tosch_le or you could work with case groups and have a decision participant which decides to which group a case belongs
2011-03-24 10:26:23 utc tosch_le sorry, there are quite a few possibilites
2011-03-24 10:26:29 utc jmettraux gregormelhorn: it's not that, it's rather you're forgetting you're free to code stuff up
2011-03-24 10:28:19 utc jmettraux cooking something, stay tuned
2011-03-24 10:28:26 utc gregormelhorn ok, I thought of using ruote because there are other cases of flow logic where I think it would be a very good fit. but I still have no Idea how to connect the workflow to the "calculate now whenever the agent presses a button which customer it will get". Except to handle this completely outside of ruote of course.
2011-03-24 10:29:03 utc jmettraux there is no "press a button" concept in ruote, it's not a front end lib like rails
2011-03-24 10:29:16 utc gregormelhorn but I still have a feeling it somehow is business process logic, and so somehow should be some participant in ruote. maybe I am wrong with that assumption
2011-03-24 10:29:35 utc gregormelhorn I know there is no press a button. I just don't know where to put that stuff in the process in a ruote way
2011-03-24 10:32:50 utc jmettraux could this help https://github.com/tosch/ruote-kit/blob/master/lib/ruote-kit/resources/workitems.rb (it shows ruote-kit "controller" for workitems)
2011-03-24 10:32:56 utc tosch_le one way:
2011-03-24 10:33:03 utc tosch_le Ruote.process_definition do
2011-03-24 10:33:11 utc tosch_le sequence do
2011-03-24 10:33:18 utc tosch_le assign_agent # a participant implementation by yours which returns immediately
2011-03-24 10:33:32 utc tosch_le process :agent => '${agent}' # a storage participant
2011-03-24 10:33:37 utc tosch_le end
2011-03-24 10:33:38 utc tosch_le end
2011-03-24 10:34:12 utc tosch_le that way, you'd had the assignment in the process definition
2011-03-24 10:35:01 utc jmettraux and here is another way, a reservation system added to StorageParticipant : https://gist.github.com/884853
2011-03-24 10:35:06 utc tosch_le but i suppose it's not the best solution: maybe you can be sure the agent is online in the assign_agent step, but you can't be sure he's still online in the process step
2011-03-24 10:36:52 utc gregormelhorn I'll have a look at these now, thank you
2011-03-24 10:39:39 utc gregormelhorn oh, I think I got it.
2011-03-24 10:40:11 utc gregormelhorn ok, so I would launch a new workflow whenever an agents says it wants a new customer? then I would immediately calculate which one he gets and proceed from there?
2011-03-24 10:40:40 utc jmettraux ?
2011-03-24 10:40:56 utc jmettraux calculate which one of what ?
2011-03-24 10:42:53 utc tosch_le in my opinion it's best to ensure that 'case' = 'workflow process'
2011-03-24 10:43:10 utc tosch_le so, you launch a flow when a case is opened
2011-03-24 10:43:40 utc gregormelhorn tosch_le: that's what I mean
2011-03-24 10:43:52 utc tosch_le but it's not what you said ;-)
2011-03-24 10:44:49 utc gregormelhorn ok, you're right. It also wasn't what I meant.
2011-03-24 10:45:07 utc gregormelhorn so you mean I launch a workflow process whenver the case enters the system, right?
2011-03-24 10:45:33 utc tosch_le do you use rails?
2011-03-24 10:45:36 utc gregormelhorn yes
2011-03-24 10:45:46 utc tosch_le yes, that's what i mean
2011-03-24 10:46:01 utc tosch_le the process/case can sleep if there's no work to be done
2011-03-24 10:46:41 utc tosch_le remember: ruote helps you to handle the whole life of the case, not only the step when an agent has to talk to a customer
2011-03-24 10:46:57 utc gregormelhorn I hoped so. :)
2011-03-24 10:49:28 utc tosch_le ok, so i'll try to be more explicit with proposing a solution: 1) the agent asks for a case to work on. 2) an model of yours queries the storage participant for the open cases. 3) it picks an appropriate case and marks it as being worked on by the agent, that way ensuring that it can't be picked by another agent. 4) the agent does his work. 5) when he's done, your controller calls the proceed action on the storage participant.
2011-03-24 10:50:09 utc tosch_le john's gist does a part of that
2011-03-24 10:51:53 utc tosch_le point 3) could be done by another participant like i showed above, but that could be problematic when the agent leaves just when point 4 is reached.
2011-03-24 10:59:49 utc jmettraux an algo or a rule engine for picking the right workitem/task in the queue
2011-03-24 11:01:15 utc tosch_le not all business logic should be in the process definition. it's ok to have the algo or rule engine in a model.
2011-03-24 11:02:03 utc jmettraux +1
2011-03-24 11:02:08 utc tosch_le it's a bit like "fat model – lean controller"
2011-03-24 11:02:17 utc tosch_le ruote is the controller in this case
2011-03-24 11:03:21 utc tosch_le hey, i like that anlogy
2011-03-24 11:03:44 utc tosch_le s/anlogy/analogy
2011-03-24 11:06:10 utc jmettraux route to the queue, let the queue sort out the question "who should do the work"
2011-03-24 11:06:20 utc jmettraux makes the queue reusable among workflows
2011-03-24 11:06:46 utc tosch_le +1
2011-03-24 11:09:02 utc jmettraux gregormelhorn: do you know Paolo Negri ?
2011-03-24 11:14:24 utc jmettraux tosch_le: relevant to ruote-kit http://www.infoq.com/presentations/BPM-with-REST
2011-03-24 11:15:58 utc tosch_le thanks for the pointer
2011-03-24 11:19:32 utc gregormelhorn back from lunch
2011-03-24 11:19:40 utc gregormelhorn jmettraux: yes, I know him
2011-03-24 11:19:41 utc gregormelhorn :)
2011-03-24 11:19:53 utc jmettraux please say hi :-)
2011-03-24 11:20:14 utc gregormelhorn hi?
2011-03-24 11:20:34 utc jmettraux sorry, please say hello to him on beside of jmettraux
2011-03-24 11:21:09 utc gregormelhorn ah, you are pairing? :)
2011-03-24 11:21:12 utc gregormelhorn hi paolo!
2011-03-24 11:25:24 utc gregormelhorn tosch_le: sounds good, the explicit solution
2011-03-24 11:26:44 utc gregormelhorn though I don't like fat model, lean controller. :) I prefer "everybody does what he does best".
2011-03-24 11:27:04 utc jmettraux nicely said
2011-03-24 11:27:08 utc tosch_le so play around a bit with ruote, have a look at the docs and at the various examples flying around
2011-03-24 11:27:42 utc tosch_le yes, but when saying "everything does what it does best", it results in fat models and lean controllers most times ;-)
2011-03-24 11:27:56 utc tosch_le s/saying/applying/
2011-03-24 11:28:06 utc gregormelhorn hmm, I observed models getting too fat and controllers getting stubs.
2011-03-24 11:28:19 utc gregormelhorn thus creating inter model dependencies via callbacks
2011-03-24 11:28:22 utc gregormelhorn this sucks :)
2011-03-24 11:28:46 utc gregormelhorn for testing and refactoring. we learned the hard way at our company :)
2011-03-24 11:31:03 utc gregormelhorn I remember there is a blog entry or comment from DHH refering to that "fat models, lean controllers" stuff. basically what I remembered from it was something like 'let every part in MVC do what it does best - and don't move controller code into the model or the other way round'
2011-03-24 11:31:27 utc tosch_le i would not contradict to that.
2011-03-24 11:32:26 utc tosch_le we have common controller actions in the application controller here and overwrite them only when necessary. so much possibilities in ruby and rails
2011-03-24 11:33:37 utc gregormelhorn so at our company nobody will callbacks that will access other models. this helped a lot.
2011-03-24 11:33:46 utc gregormelhorn ok, enough philisophical stuff now :)
2011-03-24 16:22:20 utc dlazar hello
2011-03-24 16:22:29 utc jmettraux dlazar: hello and welcome to #ruote
2011-03-24 16:22:58 utc dlazar I have a question about using rufus-scheduler
2011-03-24 16:23:11 utc jmettraux ok
2011-03-24 16:23:34 utc dlazar I would love to generate a schedule that I can examine, but not actually execute.
2011-03-24 16:23:49 utc dlazar eg: every monday, starting next monday... do something...
2011-03-24 16:23:59 utc dlazar but I just want to see what those mondays are...
2011-03-24 16:24:20 utc dlazar so I was hoping there might be a way to tease that out of the schedular..
2011-03-24 16:24:47 utc jmettraux Rufus::Cronline.new('* * * * *').next_time(Time.now)
2011-03-24 16:24:52 utc dlazar looking at the jobs... but I am not sure if there are actually any "Jobs" ... per se...
2011-03-24 16:25:05 utc jmettraux where you replace '* * * * *' with your cron string
2011-03-24 16:25:38 utc jmettraux sorry
2011-03-24 16:25:49 utc jmettraux Rufus::CronLine.new('* * * * *').next_time(Time.now)
2011-03-24 16:27:04 utc dlazar Rufus::ChronLine is part of schedular?
2011-03-24 16:27:29 utc jmettraux Rufus::CronLine is
2011-03-24 16:27:56 utc dlazar nice, thx
2011-03-24 16:31:25 utc dlazar hmm.. looking at the code.. next_time gives me a date sure.. but I am looking to somehow generate a schedule of say, X events.. any thoughts on using the code to try that?
2011-03-24 16:31:47 utc dlazar example... show me all the Mondays this month, and then all the Mondays in April... but that is it...
2011-03-24 16:32:12 utc dlazar Chronic should help with that.. but it does not iterate over the concept of ALL
2011-03-24 16:32:21 utc dlazar so I thought the scheduler might help for that
2011-03-24 16:36:00 utc jmettraux dlazar: you can call it multiple times
2011-03-24 16:36:10 utc jmettraux with a different "start time"
2011-03-24 16:36:19 utc jmettraux I used "Time.now" for the example
2011-03-24 16:36:38 utc dlazar yes.. I am thinking I can just use Chronic that way too... just call it X times and increment the base day...
2011-03-24 16:36:45 utc dlazar Thx
2011-03-24 16:36:59 utc jmettraux you're welcome
2011-03-24 16:37:22 utc jmettraux IIRC there's a gem that deals with such time series, but I can't remember the name
2011-03-24 16:38:12 utc dlazar I will try rubygems for that... I did not find a time series.. I have experience with Chronic and Whenever.. but not much else Time processing code...
2011-03-24 16:40:41 utc jmettraux https://github.com/EdvardM/recurrence seems a bit asleep
2011-03-24 16:41:02 utc jmettraux https://github.com/fnando/recurrence looks better
2011-03-24 16:46:43 utc dlazar excellent! thx for the hot tip
2011-03-24 16:52:55 utc dlazar w00t! That recurrence gem is exactly what the Dr. ordered... thanks again!!!
2011-03-24 16:58:17 utc jmettraux you're welcome :-)