Overview

Welcome to Templates for Workflows!

Templates are pre-built collections of automated business processes that can be imported in Okta Workflows. New workflow templates submitted to this repo can be published to the Okta Workflows console.

Getting Started

Designing a template is a straightfoward process that begins in the Okta Workflows console, where you design the intended business process. This can be distributed across one or more workflows and tables but all related workflows and tables should be kept in the same folder.

Once the collections of workflows and/or tables are complete, you can export the enclosing folder containing the business process by clicking the gear icon on the folder and selecting "Export".

This will download a flopack file to your local filesystem and it is this file that serves as the basis for the Workflows template.

Submitting a Workflows Template

Step by step tutorial of creating a new template

Each template submission will have three files:

• the template (.flopack file) itself
• readme.md - contains usage instructions and details about the flows contained in the template
• workflow.json - contains metadata about the template

arranged in a directory structure shown below:

workflows-templates/workflows/
  my_shared_workflow/
    workflow.json
    workflow.flopack
    readme.md

You can find an example of the structure here.

The following guidelines must be followed when creating the template files and enclosing folder:

• Folder name needs to be lower case and separated with underscore (regex: ^[a-z0-9_]{2,50}$ e.g create_report_google_sheets).
• Each published file (mentioned below) in the folder also needs to be in lower case.
  • readme.md
  • workflow.flopack
  • workflow.json
• Files such as workflow.flopack and workflow.json need to have valid JSON structure.
• The name value in the workflow.json file has a limit of 50 characters and must exactly match the name of the enclosing folder.
• The connector names in the workflow.json file must only contain valid connector names referenced in the connectors.json file.
• Verify if video and documentation links in workflow.json file refers to same folder structure

Step 1: Rename the flopack file

Locate the file that was created from the aforementioned Export process and rename it to workflow.flopack

Step 2: Create the metadata

Create a new file named workflow.json. This file must contain the following fields:

• name [string] - The name of your template. This should be a string that contains only lowercase letters and underscores (e.g.: suspend_inactive_users) and it must be unique among the folders in this repository
• title [string] - The descriptive, human-friendly title of the template that will appear in the product
• description [string] - More information describing what the template does and its potential uses
• connectors [string[]] - A comprehensive ist of all connectors used by this template. Connector names are the third-party applications that power the Workflows product. Connector names should be in all lower case. You can find a list of valid connector names here.
• links [object[]] - Links to documentation or videos for this template

Metadata structure and validation rules

In addition to the fields detailed above, the file should also contain a details object that contains specific pre-defined elements with correct type for each element. There are validation rules that run on CI to make sure that the data in the details object correspond with what's inside the workflow.flopack file. Your pull request CI checks will fail if the validation rules are not met.

workflow.json's details data structure:

{
  ...,
  "details": {
    "flowCount": number > 0,
    "helperFlowsCount": number > 0,
    "mainFlowsCount": number > 0,
    "stashCount": number > 0,
    "flos": [
      {
        id: string;
        name: string;
        type: "MAIN" | "HELPER",
        screenshotURL: string
      }
    ]
    "tags": string[],
  },
  ...
}

Managing metadata fields

Most fields in the details object should not be filled in manually as they must match exactly what is in the workflow.flopack file.

These fields include:

• flowCount
• helperFlowsCount
• mainFlowsCount
• stashCount
• flos

To generate this data, run the script at ./scripts/json-details-scripts/details_modifier.js. It will iterate over ALL templates in the repository and modify the details object in each workflow.json file to match what is specified in the respecitve workflow.flopack file.

Each field in the details object is optional. If the template flopack doesn't contain flows or tables or isn't tagged, the corresponding field should be completely removed, rather be specified with a value of 0.

Example: The shape a details object for a template with no tables

{
  ...,
  "details": {
    "flowCount": 2,
    "helperFlowsCount": 1,
    "mainFlowsCount": 1,
    "flos": [
      {
        id: "id-1";
        name: "flo-1";
        type: "MAIN",
        screenshotURL: "https://flo-1-screenshot-url.png"
      },
      {
        id: "id-2";
        name: "flo-2";
        type: "HELPER",
        screenshotURL: "https://flo-2-screenshot-url.png"
      }
    ],
    "tags": [
      "introductory",
      "popular"
    ]
  },
  ...
}

Example: The shape a details object for a template with no flos and no tags

{
  ...,
  "details": {
    "stashCount": number > 0
  },
  ...
}

Reminder: You don't have to calculate these fields or do any manual work. Just run the details_modifier.js script.

Flows screenshots

For each workflow that contains flows, a screenshot of each flow should be added to the ${WORKFLOW_FOLDER}/resources directory (create the resources directory if it doesn't exist). The purpose of this screenshot is to showcase your flow to users in Okta's catalog platform.

The screenshot should cover the full flow plus the beginning and ending placeholder cards, not only parts of it, also it should be in high resolution. You can checkout the workflows screenshots in this repo for reference and try to generate screenshots as similar to them as possible. You can check the step-by-step tutorial for more guidance on how to generate screenshots.

The screenshot name should change whenever the screenshot content is different. This is not an issue for a newly added screenshot. But whenever the screenshot changes, its name should change. We recommend using a hash for the screenshot name that depends on its content. You can use any online service to get that hash. We recommend using SHA256 base64. Plenty of online tools exist for that purpose (example).

The reason behind using a file name that depends on the screenshot content is to have a new URL for the screenshot whenever the file content changes. It is mechanism to cache-bust older versions of the screenshot and make sure that users always see the latest version of the screenshot.

Hint: You can explore the screenshots for the current workflows in this repo for reference.

Deploying flows screenshots & screenshot URL

Flows screenshots are automatically deployed to the cloud when a new branch is pushed to this repo. A CI/CD job runs on new branches and uploads the content of the resources folders to Amazon's S3.

The screenshot URL follows the pattern: https://d78vv2h34ll3s.cloudfront.net/static/catalog/workflows/${WORKFLOW_NAME}/resources/${SCREENSHOT_HASH}.png

Example: let's assume we have a workflow called "email_new_slack_users" that contain 3 flows, the folder structure of screenshots should look like:

workflows
  email_new_slack_users
    ...
    resources
      WXjssHdK61RCIQKWPUPvNyu9u7V7j8G4fyQLG9xD-E.png
      06vs4F4lTvB_ZtLnAmX2l7aqmP977Fa-mASSNRl7mjM.png
      5Q-UGCLVcMZIg1Wm5hXj3h1JJCWjxbs0fFzIyplN4_Q.png

When it is pushed to a branch in this repo, the screenshots will be automatically deployed. The URL for each screenshot will be the following:

https://d78vv2h34ll3s.cloudfront.net/static/catalog/workflows/email_new_slack_users/resources/WXjssHdK61RCIQKWPUPvNyu9u7V7j8G4fyQLG9xD-E.png
https://d78vv2h34ll3s.cloudfront.net/static/catalog/workflows/email_new_slack_users/resources/06vs4F4lTvB_ZtLnAmX2l7aqmP977Fa-mASSNRl7mjM.png
https://d78vv2h34ll3s.cloudfront.net/static/catalog/workflows/email_new_slack_users/resources/5Q-UGCLVcMZIg1Wm5hXj3h1JJCWjxbs0fFzIyplN4_Q.png

You can then use these links to populate the metadata of the FLOs inside the workflow.json file of the email_new_slack_users workflow.

Note: because the screenshots will be uploaded during the lifecycle of the CI/CD jobs of the repo, it may take a few minutes for the screenshots to be publicly reachable at their links.

Step 3: Additional documentation

Finally, create a readme.md file that has the setup documentation for your template. It should be written in markdown and follow the structure outlined here.

Test CI script on local setup

Install dependencies (first time only)

npm install

and then run the following commands from root of git repo to test remote branch. All files should have commit to diff with master

git checkout <remote-branch-name>
npm run validate:schema <remote-branch-name>
npm run validate:release <remote-branch-name>