A collection of nodes for communicating with Objectif Lune's OL Connect Server.

The OL Connect package for Node-RED was born out of the need to provide users of OL Connect with a modern, web-based, cloud-friendly, unicode-aware automation tool.

For years, this job has been handled by OL Connect Workflow (aka Workflow), whose first version dates back to the turn of the century.

However, as powerful and efficent as Workflow is, its evolution is somewhat hampered by its original design: a native-code, 32-bit, on-premise application that only partially supports unicode. Consequently, OL decided to explore other automation methods that could, at first complement, and ultimately replace Workflow. This package is the first step in that direction and part of a OL Connect Automate stack.

Features

• Create multi-channel communications (print, web, email) from OL Connect templates.
• Leverage data across systems to build dynamic documents.
• Enhance documents using text, images, variable data, and more.
• Utilize advanced features such as batch printing, sorting, and finishing.
• Maximize print production control with optimized output formats.

Installation

Use the Manage Palette option from the Node-RED-menu, or run the following command in your Node-RED user directory - typically ~/.node-red

npm install @objectif-lune/node-red-contrib-connect

Alternatively, a stand-alone installer for Node.js, Node-RED, npm and the OL Connect Automate stack can be found on the Objectif Lune Resource Center. Specifically OL Connect Automate can be found under the product OL Connect with resource set as all or tech preview.

Obviously, you must have OL Connect installed on a server that can be reached from the one where Node-RED is installed, otherwise you won't be able to perform any automation tasks.

Usage

All the documentation is available in each node.

Each node has been designed to input/output values that make sense for most common applications. For instance, the data mapping node expects to receive a data file (or msg.managedfileId generated through the file store upload node) as input, and it outputs msg.dataSetId that can then be immediately consumed by nodes like paginated content, email content and html content. Nodes like paginated content, in turn, output a content set ID that can be consumed by the paginaged job node.

This makes it easy to string the nodes together in order to create your first basic flow. Each individual node is very similar to its Workflow task cousin, although nodes and tasks are not always strictly identical in the way they behave.

Note also that all nodes that communicate with the OL Connect Server always require you to specify a Configuration node, which you set up once (from inside any of the OL Connect nodes) and re-use across all nodes.

A word of caution

This package is part of the OL Connect Automate stack. It is intended for use by current users of OL Connect who want to experiment with automating server operations through Node-RED. The OL Connect Automate stack is a technology preview.

Support

At this early stage, the OL Connect Automate stack is not supported through the OL Care program. Feel free to visit the OL Connect Automate stack forum to post questions, comments and suggestions.

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.