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Resources

This page explains the distinction between Global Resources and Application Resources within the FlowX.AI Designer platform, highlighting how they are structured, used, and promoted across environments.

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Overview

Resources are categorized into Global Resources and Application Resources. Each type of resource has unique characteristics that determine its usage, dependencies, and how it’s promoted between environments. Understanding these differences is crucial for efficient application development, management, and deployment.

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Global Resources

Global Resources are elements designed to be reused across multiple applications or business contexts. These resources are often organized within libraries, enabling consistency and efficiency by providing a central repository of shared components.

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Key Characteristics of Global Resources

• Reusability: Global Resources are created with the intention of reuse. They include common design elements, themes, fonts, and other assets that can be referenced by multiple applications.
• Dependency Rules: Libraries, which store Global Resources, cannot have dependencies on other libraries or applications. This ensures that Global Resources remain standalone, maximizing their adaptability across various business cases.
• Application Independence: These resources are not application-specific, making them versatile for broad use cases. Applications can reference libraries without requiring modifications to the core resources.

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Examples of Global Resources

1. Design Assets
   • Themes: Standardized themes provide a consistent look and feel across applications.
   • System Assets: Common media elements stored in the media library (e.g., images, icons) for theme customization.
   • Fonts: Font families that can be reused to maintain branding across different applications.
2. Plugins
   • Languages:
   • Notification and Document Templates: Managed at the global level, although they may be versioned for future releases.
   • Out of office:
3. General settings
   • Users:
   • Roles:
   • Groups:
   • Audit Log:
4. Libraries: Organized resource containers including enumerations, substitution tags, and CMS components for multi-application use.

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Promotion of Global Resources

• Promotion Workflow: Global Resources within libraries are promoted separately from applications. They are typically imported into the Designer UI in target environments as part of their own libraries.
• Configuration Management: When libraries are promoted, existing configurations, such as generic parameters, are replaced by application-level configurations in the target environment.

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Application Resources

Application Resources are resources specific to a particular business use case. Unlike Global Resources, these resources are confined to the context of the application they belong to, allowing for tailored configurations and dependencies on one or more libraries.

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Key Characteristics of Application Resources

• Business Specificity: Application Resources are tailored to a specific application, addressing unique business requirements.
• Dependencies on Libraries: Applications can reference libraries to access Global Resources, allowing for customization and adaptability.
• Configurability: Application-specific configurations are defined at the development stage, and values can be updated as needed in upper environments through environment variables or direct parameter overrides.

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Examples of Application Resources

1. Processes:
2. CMS Components: Custom CMS enumerations, substitution tags, and media items unique to the application.
3. Task Management:
   • Views:
   • Hooks:
   • Stages:
   • Allocation rules:
4. Integration Designer:
   • Systems:
   • Workflows:
5. Configuration Parameters: Application-specific rendering settings like applicationUuid, locale, language, and process parameters.
6. Application Builds: Builds represent finalized versions of the application, including all associated metadata and linked library versions.
7. Application Settings:

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Promotion of Application Resources

• Promotion Workflow: Only builds (not commits) are eligible for promotion to upper environments. Builds are exported from the development environment and imported into target environments via the Designer UI.
• Design Asset Handling: During import, any referenced design assets are created if absent but are not updated, ensuring consistency in upper environments.
• Configuration Parameters Overrides: Upper environment values replace development defaults, and these can be managed through environment variables, enabling flexibility without direct development environment access.

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Summary Table