Adding Business Logic to Clarity’s Solution

While you have Clarity’s custom distributor onboarding solution up and running, some business logic remains unfinished. In these exercises, you will

• Enable an approval workflow for Distributor Applications with a microservice client extension.
• Set up an object action to automate account creation.
• Configure notifications for new Distributor Application submissions.

Implementing business logic is a key differentiator between just tacking on extra functionality and actually extending the platform.

Exercise: Enabling the Approval Workflow

Clarity has already implemented a workflow process for reviewing and approving changes made to applications, but this workflow depends on a microservice client extension to function properly. Currently, all updates to the Application State field are approved automatically. However, the workflow is supposed to require a final manager review before allowing users to set the Application State field to Approved or Denied.

Here you’ll deploy the microservice client extension and finish configuring the workflow definition in the Liferay UI as the Clarity Admin user.

To do this,

1. Open your terminal and go to the [repository-root]/client-extensions/liferay-clarity-etc-spring-boot/ folder.

2. Build and deploy the client extension project into your Liferay instance. Make sure the deployment was successful.

   blade gw clean deploy
   

   Or use Gradle Wrapper:

   ../../gradlew clean deploy
   

3. Run this command from the liferay-clarity-etc-spring-boot/ folder to start the Spring Boot application:

   blade gw bootRun
   

   Or use Gradle Wrapper:

   ../../gradlew bootRun
   

4. When the application starts, go to http://localhost:58081/ready. If the application is ready for use, the page says “READY.”

5. In your Liferay instance, open the Global Menu (), go to the Applications tab, and click Process Builder.

   

   The Distribution Manager Approval workflow is already fully configured. All you have to do is enable it for the Distributor Application object.

6. Go to the Configuration tab.

7. Click Edit for D4B8 Distributor Application, select D4B8 Distribution Manager Approval, and click Save.

   

This enables the workflow. Now you can test it by editing an object entry and setting its state field to Under Review. This update should be approved automatically by the workflow action. Next, update the state field to Approved. The entry’s status should be Pending. You can then impersonate Harper Roberts and check for a workflow notification. You can then assign the task to Roberts and approve it. Once finished, the entry’s status should be Approved.

Exercise: Automating Account Creation

To complete the onboarding flow, Clarity wants to automate account creation for approved applications. The client extension you deployed in the previous exercise includes an object action client extension for this. When triggered, this action creates an account using the application’s business name, associates the applicant with the account, and assigns the applicant the Account Administrator role. Since the client extension is already deployed and the microservice is running, all you have to do is create an object action to finish setting it up as the Clarity Admin user.

To do this,

1. Begin editing the D4B8 Distributor Application object.

2. Go to the Actions tab and click Add ().

3. Enter these values in the Basic Info tab:

   Field	Value
   Action Label	Set Up Account
   Action Name	setUpAccount
   Description	Standalone, create a business account for an approved application.
   Active	True

4. Go to the Action Builder tab and set these values:

   Field	Value
   Trigger	Standalone
   Action	object-action-executor[function#liferay-clarity-etc-spring-boot-object-action-account]
   Error Message	Failed to create the business account.

5. Click Save.

   

6. Open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Roles.

7. Add the Set Up Account action permission to the D4B8 Business Development Manager role.

8. In the left menu, go to Control Panel → Object → D4B8 Distributor Applications.

   Permission
   Resource Permissions > D4B8 Distributor Application: action.setUpAccount

When saved, Liferay adds the Set Up Account action as an option in each object entry’s Actions menu (), so you can trigger it manually. Now you can try it out!

After triggering the action, open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Accounts. If successful, the new account should appear and the Clarity Admin user should be assigned to it as the account manager.

Exercise: Setting Up Notifications

Currently, Clarity’s solution only includes notifications for notifying applicants of changes in their application’s status. But they do not have notifications for alerting their business development team of new submissions. Relying on team members to manually check for new submissions does not scale and leaves room for human error, resulting in missed opportunities or poor user experience.

Here you’ll add a notification template and set up an object action for triggering it as the Clarity Admin user.

To do this,

1. Open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Templates under Notifications.

   The provided solution includes these templates:

   • Application Approved
   • Application Denied
   • Application Received

   

2. Click Add and select User Notification.

   Here you can begin designing the template.

   Tip: You can access object field references to populate notifications dynamically with data for the entry or user who triggers the notification action. To view available variables, scroll down to Definition of Terms and select D4B8 Distributor Application object in the dropdown menu.

3. Enter these values for Basic Info:

   Field	Value
   Name	D4B8 Application Submitted, Admin, User
   Description	Sends user notifications to an administrative role whenever a distributor application is submitted.

4. Enter these values for Settings:

   Field	Value
   Recipients	Role
   Role	D4B8 Business Development Manager

5. Enter this value for Content:

   Field	Value
   Subject	APP-[%D4B8DISTRIBUTORAPPLICATION_ID%]: [%D4B8DISTRIBUTORAPPLICATION_APPLICANTNAME%] submitted a distributor application for [%D4B8DISTRIBUTORAPPLICATION_BUSINESSNAME%].

6. Click Save.

   Now you can add a notification action to the Distributor Applications object that uses this template.

7. Open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Objects.

8. Select D4B8 Distributor Application and go to the Actions tab.

   The provided solution includes three notification actions:

   • Application Received
   • Application Approved
   • Application Denied

   

9. Click Add to create a new object action.

10. Enter these values in the Basic Info tab:

    Field	Value
    Action Label	Application Submitted
    Action Name	applicationSubmitted
    Description	On After Add, send notifications to administrative users.
    Active	True

    

11. Go to the Action Builder tab and set these values:

    Field	Value
    Trigger	On After Add
    Condition	N/A
    Action	Notification
    Notification Template	D4B8 Application Submitted, Admin, User

    

12. Click Save.

Now whenever users submit an application, employees with the Business Development Manager role are automatically notified. To test the notification, create another application entry and impersonate Harper Roberts. You should see a platform notification.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully enabled an approval workflow, automated account creation, and configured notifications for Clarity’s distributor solution, integrating it further with Liferay DXP. The last step in customization is designing user interfaces.

Up Next: Designing User Interfaces

Additional Resources

See official documentation to learn more about adding business logic to custom solutions:

• Integrating Microservices
• Enabling Workflow for Objects
• Adding and Managing Custom States
• Object Actions
• Notifications