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NAME

App::Dochazka::REST::Docs::Workflow - Documentation of REST workflow

DESCRIPTION

This is a POD-only module containing documentation describing standard Dochazka workflow scenarios and the REST resources used therein.

It is intended to be used in the functional testing process.

WORKFLOW SCENARIOS

The workflow scenarios are divided into sections according to the privlevel of the logged-in employee doing the "work" - i.e., interacting with the Dochazka REST server.

The workflow scenarios are presented in order of increasing privilege. Employees with higher privilege can perform all the workflow scenarios available to those of lower privilege.

passerby

Passerby is the default privlevel. In other words, employees without any privhistory entries will automatically be assigned this privlevel.

Passerby employees (which need not be "employees" in a legal sense) can engage in the following workflows:

Login

If LDAP authentication is enabled and DOCHAZKA_LDAP_AUTOCREATE is set, a new passerby employee will be created whenever an as-yet unseen employee logs in (authenticates herself to the REST server). Otherwise, a passerby employee can log in only if an administrator has created the corresponding employee profile.

Explore available resources

Any logged-in employee is free to explore available resources. The starting point for such exploration can be GET / (i.e. a GET request for the top-level resource), which is the same as GET /help. The information returned is specific to the HTTP method used, so for PUT resources one needs to use PUT / (or PUT /help), etc.

Only accessible resources are displayed. For example, a passerby employee will not see admin resources. A few resources (e.g. activity/aid/:aid), have different ACL profiles depending on which HTTP method is used.

Retrieve one's own employee profile

Using GET employee/self, any employee can view her own employee profile. The payload is a valid employee object.

Alternatively, GET employee/self/full can be used, in which case the employee's current privilege level and schedule are returned along with the employee object.

Retrieve one's own current schedule/privlevel

Using GET /priv/self/?:ts and GET /schedule/self/?:ts, any employee can retrieve her own current privlevel and schedule. By including a timestamp she can also retrieve her privlevel and schedule as of any arbitrary date/time.

Generate reports

Passerby employees can use the POST genreport operation to generate reports from any report templates (Mason components) with ACL profile 'passerby'.

inactive

The inactive privlevel is intended for employees who are not currently attending work, but are expected to resume their attendance at some point in the future: for example, employees on maternity leave, sabbatical, etc.

Short-term leave situations like medical leave can of course be handled by having the employee enter attendance intervals according to their schedule, but using a special activity like, for example, 'SICK_LEAVE'. The 'inactive' privlevel is appropriate if an employee will be inactive for a longer period, during which she is not expected to fill out attendance.

Though such employees might not be expected to even log in to Dochazka during their period of inactivity, if they happen to do so they can engage in the following workflows (in addition to the passerby workflows described in the previous section).

Retrieve one's own schedule/privilege history

Employee schedules and privlevels change over time. To ensure that historical attendance data is always associated with the schedule and privlevel in effect at the time the attendance took place, all changes to employee schedules and privlevels are recorded in a "history table".

Since inactive employees are still employees (or members of the organization), they are authorized to view (retrieve) their privilege/schedule histories using the schedule/history/self/?:tsrange and priv/history/self/?:tsrange resources.

Edit one's own employee profile (certain fields)

Inactive employees are authorized to edit certain fields of their employee profile (e.g., to change their password or correct the spelling of their full name, etc.). These fields are configurable via the DOCHAZKA_PROFILE_EDITABLE_FIELDS site parameter.

Retrieve one's own attendance/lock intervals

Although inactive employees are not authorized to enter new attendance/lock intervals, they can retrieve their own past intervals, for example by browsing in the web client, etc.

Generate reports

Inactive employees can use the POST genreport operation to generate reports from any report templates (Mason components) with ACL profile 'inactive' or below.

active

Add new attendance intervals

Active employees can add new attendance data ("intervals") subject to the following limitations:

(a) only their own attendance - not that of other employees,
(b) attendance interval must not conflict with an existing lock interval,
(c) attendance interval must not extend past the end of the current month and,
(d) attendance interval must not overlap with an existing interval.
    Example 1: Employee 'pepik' tries to insert an attendance interval
               [1985-04-27 08:00, 1985-04-27 12:00) but there is a 
               lock in place for that date. In such a case, the lock would have
               to be removed by an administrator, or 'pepik' would be out of luck.

    Example 2: Today's date is 2014-10-22 and 'pepik' attempts to insert
               an attendance interval [2014-11-07 08:00, 2014-11-07 08:30) -
               this will not be possible until 2014-11-01..

New attendance data is added via POST requests on interval/new.

Add new lock intervals

Active employees are authorized to lock attendance data by adding new lock intervals subject to the following restrictions:

(a) only on their own attendance,
(b) only on past attendance and up to the end of the current month,
(c) lock interval must not overlap with any other lock intervals.

Modify one's own unlocked past attendance data

Active employees can modify/delete any existing attendance data, provided the attendance intervals in question do not conflict with any lock.

Retrieve list of non-disabled activities

Since attendance data must be associated with a valid activity, active employees are authorized to retrieve the entire list of non-disabled activities using a GET request on the activity/all resource.

Retrieve details of a particular activity

Active employees can look up the details of any activity (including disabled activities) by the activity's code or AID using GET requests on activity/aid/:aid and activity/code/:code.

Edit one's own employee profile (certain fields)

Depending on the exact setting of the DOCHAZKA_PROFILE_EDITABLE_FIELDS site parameter, active employees may be authorized to edit more fields than inactive employees.

Generate reports

Active employees can use the POST genreport operation to generate reports from any report templates (Mason components) with ACL profile 'active' or below.

admin

Edit any employee's profile

Administrators can edit any employee's profile. The only limitation is that the EID cannot be changed.

Create, read, update, and delete Mason components

Mason components are stored in the database and written out to the filesystem every time the server starts. Since these components pose a security risk, only administrators can work with them.

Non-administrator employees cannot view component source code, but they can generate reports using the POST genreport operation, which takes a top-level component path, provided they have sufficient privileges to use the component in question.

AUTHOR

Nathan Cutler ncutler@suse.cz