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Basic Terms in This Documentation

This section briefly describes the basic terms of a DPF system, in alphabetical order.

DPF/SEAL Environment

Shell or Terminal window with configured environment settings specialized for Digital Process Factory or a wider range of SEAL Systems products.

Job

During assignment, a DPF client passes a job to the DPF system. A job consists of the desired workflow, the job-specific parameters and possible one or more files to be processed.

Literature

- [Administrate Jobs in DPF Tracker](../use_cases/dpf_tracker/dpftracker_admin_jobs.md)

Node Working Unit

A working unit provided as an npm package instead of an external script. The package contains the working unit definition in a workingunit.xml file. The seal-dpf-wustandard service loads node working units from their npm packages, not from the templates directory. A node working unit is located in the node_modules\@sealsystems subdirectory of the service that ships it, for example C:\Program Files\SEAL Systems\seal-dpf-wustandard\node_modules\@sealsystems on Windows or /opt/seal/seal-dpf-wustandard/node_modules/@sealsystems on Linux. In a workflow, you call a node working unit the same way as a classic working unit.

Literature

Parameter

You specify the job's parameters when assigning the job or in the configuration of the working units or the workflows. Other parameters are set internally by the DPF system.

Literature

Process

Another term for workflow.

Ready-Made Working Unit

SEAL Systems offers a set of ready-made working units which realize frequently performed working tasks, for example:

  • checkout gets a file from SAP.
  • stamppdf stamps a PDF file.

RLI

An RLI job file (*.rli) is a file containing information for checking out and outputting files stored locally or in an archive.

Subprocess

A subprocess is a workflow that another workflow calls. A sequence of working units which is used in different workflows again and again can be compiled to a subprocess.

Literature

Workflow

A workflow specifies the order in which working units process a job. It consists of positions. Each position either calls a working unit or controls the flow, for example with a condition. Workflows can call other workflows as subprocesses in order to split complex projects into manageable tasks.

Literature

Working Unit

A single module within a DPF system is called working unit. A working unit is the smallest part of a workflow. Each working unit performs one single closed task such as converting a file from format A into format B, stamping a file or entering data.

Literature

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