Building Custom Integration Points
Complex Flows sometimes require customized functionality that cannot be implemented using the X-Designer alone. X‑Platform allows you to easily create and maintain your own custom code as a service, and expose that service to Designers.
A Custom Service is run using a Custom Integration Point (IP) on the X‑Platform Server – no additional servers are needed for deployment. In this way, your code is completely segregated and maintained in a secure environment.
Some use cases for Custom Services include:
Customized format validation
XML parsing
Calculations based on multiple web services
Complex string and date manipulation
Custom Services use the Node.js runtime environment, enabling you to easily build fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient.
Wrapping each Custom Service in an IP allows the current Flow to send variables to the IP request, and receive one or more variables in the IP response. The variables can be simple types (e.g., text or number), or complex types, such as custom variables or a collection.
X-Platform supports handling of multiple concurrent Custom IP requests.
The following diagram shows how a Custom Service is invoked from a Flow:
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Request variables are sent to the X‑Platform Server
The service is executed within the X‑Platform Server
Response variables are sent back and, in this case, displayed to the Flow user in a Collection Display.
You use the Custom Integration Point wizard to define the request and response variables. The wizard provides a simple code editor panel to add custom code and test for errors.
After you add a Custom IP, the Custom Service automatically becomes available in the X-Designer, like any other Integration Point.