Inline Functions in K2 blackpearl and blackpoint 4.5

Inline functions are a great new addition to the K2 product lines. In short the big advantage is that Inline Functions will reduce the amount of code I add to processes making it faster to automate the processes and easier to maintain over time.

I find in most K2 engagements and in solutions I have developed that there are always business situations that the out of the box process design wizards and SmartObjects can’t handle. Often it’s pretty simple stuff like just needing to do subtract some string manipulation, data conversion or just increment a counter. These requirements would require adding a server event in blackpearl with line or two of code here and there in the process or creating a web service that I need to call from blackpoint using the Reference Event.

With the release of 4.5 that is changing since now K2 is providing a pretty comprehensive list of functions that can be basically called anywhere within the process designers whether its line rules, activities, destination rules in much the same way that SmartObjects can also be called. An unexpected bonus (at least it was for me) is that Inline functions can also be called from the new K2 Web Designer which uses Silverlight.

Functions are categorized into the following groups:

• Conversion - perform data-type conversions on input values.

• Date and Time - perform operations on date and time input values and return string, numeric, or date and time values.

• Expression - perform multiple operations based on an expression and return values.

• InfoPath - perform attachment-related operations on InfoPath documents and return arrays of bytes.

• Lists - perform calculations on lists based on input values and returns a number.

• Logical - perform Boolean operations on input values and return True or False.

• Mathematical - perform calculations based on numeric input values provided as parameters to the functions and return numeric values.

• Text - perform operations on string input values and return a string or numeric value.

One of the best things is they are extensible which I will be posting some more about.