What is the Tool SDK?
Orbis TaskCentre is designed to model business processes by passing information between a number of different Steps each performing a specific Task. The Task carried out by each Step is performed by a Tool. TaskCentre comes with a wide range of Tools built in which can be dragged onto the Task design surface and connected in an almost infinite number of ways. However, it may be necessary to perform a function which TaskCentre does not include in the standard package. To easily facilitate this, Orbis have developed the Tool Developers pack.
The Tool SDK is a bolt in pack for Microsoft Visual Studio custom tools to be developed in C# or VB through step by step wizards to simplify the process. These can then be distributed and used with installations of TaskCentre.
On installation, two new templates for creating TaskCentre Tools are added to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 under the C# and Visual Basic folders. These templates when compiled will create custom tool assemblies which can be loaded and used by TaskCentre. The default projects will compile into a working tool with default options dialogs which will not do anything on invocation.
Once obtained, the information is then available to other Format or Output Steps for manipulation and/or delivery.
Who should use it?
The Tool SDK is intended for use by anyone with a basic understanding of TaskCentre and programming in either Microsoft Visual Basic or Microsoft Visual C#.
What do I need to use it?
In order to use tools generated with the Tool SDK, each copy of TaskCentre must have the Tool Interface API installed and licensed to use the required number of plug-in tools. Orbis sales will be able to supply the keys required to activate your software for this feature.
In order to create tools for use with TaskCentre you will require a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard, a copy of Orbis TaskCentre and a copy of the TaskCentre Tool SDK.
What are the different types of tool I can create with it?
The beauty of the Tool SDK is that there is literally no limit to what you can do with it but roughly speaking tools fall into four categories:
Input
Input tools extract information from a source such as a database, internet
web service or barcode reader and make it available to other tools in
TaskCentre.
Output
Output tools accept information in the form of documents or recordsets
and perform a task on this information. This may be distributing it by
a transport such as SMS or E-Mail or storing it to a database or file
for later use.
Format
Format tools accept information usually in the form of a recordset, perform
some processing on it (for example conversion to HMTL or PDF) and make
the resultant document or recordset available to other tools to use.
General
General tools neither accept nor generate information in the form of recordsets
or documents. An example might be a word counter where the configuration
allows dynamic text to be entered with a list of words to check for. This
would then be published as a step parameter.
