Eric D. Schabell: 10 Steps to Cloud Happiness: Step 6 - Human Aspect

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

10 Steps to Cloud Happiness: Step 6 - Human Aspect

10 steps cloud happiness
Step 6 - Human aspect
Every journey starts at the beginning and this journey's no exception, a journey of 10 steps to cloud happiness

As previously presented in the introduction, it's possible to find cloud happiness through a journey focused on the storyline of digital transformation and the need to deliver applications in to a cloud service.

Application delivery and all it's moving parts such as containers, cloud, platform as a service (PaaS) and a digital journey requires some planning to get started. There's nothing like hands-on steps to quickly leverage real experiences as you prepare.

Previously we covered how to get a cloud, the use of a service catalog, how to add cloud operations functionality, centralizing business logic, and process improvement, so what's next?

Learning from human resources

Human resource departments have long been a focus of process oriented workflows and contain many opportunities for automation with cloud services. Whether on-boarding a new employee or setting up a rewards systems as part of employee compensation planning, the opportunities for learning in this domain are endless.
10 steps cloud happiness
HR vacation requests.

To further your journey in to cloud happiness, the following two projects provide learning paths to how you can deliver human resource applications to the cloud. The first is an employee vacation request application and the second is an employee rewards program.

HR vacation request
This demo installs a vacation request application in the cloud leveraging the OpenShift Container Platform (OCP). It delivers a fully functioning HR employee vacation request example containerized on OCP.

This is a simple vacation request process project for employees to request PTO / Vacation days. It demonstrates the following functionality:
  • Rest service (GET & POST)
  • Human Task assignment and escalation
  • Business Rule for auto approval
This is a vacation process example which calls out to a REST service to get vacation information based on a particular ID. Based on the rule for hours requested (10 hours or less), the request is auto approved or is routed to a manager. If the manager does not claim/complete the task in 30 seconds, it's escalated to another group. Once approved or not approved, the original requester can see the status.

Below are the instructions that include installing OCP as outlined in step one of this series called, Get a Cloud.
  1. First ensure you have an OpenShift container based installation, such as one of the following installed first:
  2. Download and unzip this demo.
  3. Download JBoss EAP & JBoss BPM Suite, add to installs directory (see installs/README).
  4. Run 'init.sh' or 'init.bat' file. 'init.bat' must be run with Administrative privileges:
  5.    # The installation needs to be pointed to a running version
       # of OpenShift, so pass an IP address such as:
       #
       $ ./init.sh 192.168.99.100  # example for OCP.
Log in to JBoss BPM Suite to start exploring an employee vacation request application.

HR employee rewards
10 steps cloud happiness
HR employee rewards
This example installs an employee rewards application in the cloud leveraging the OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) It delivers a fully functioning HR employee rewards example containerized on OCP.


This is the HR employee rewards application that provides examples of human task integration, form designer and a custom email work item handler.

Below are the instructions that include installing OCP as outlined in step one of this series called, Get a Cloud.
  1. First ensure you have an OpenShift container based installation, such as one of the following installed first:
  2. Download and unzip this demo.
  3. Download JBoss EAP & JBoss BPM Suite, add to installs directory (see installs/README).
  4. Run 'init.sh' or 'init.bat' file. 'init.bat' must be run with Administrative privileges:
  5.    # The installation needs to be pointed to a running version
       # of OpenShift, so pass an IP address such as:
       #
       $ ./init.sh 192.168.99.100  # example for OCP.
Log in to JBoss BPM Suite to start exploring an employee rewards application.

These examples ensure you have jump started on the human aspect of your cloud happiness, exploring the domain of human resources, containers and application delivery in the cloud.

Rest of the story

10 steps cloud happiness
Looking for container-based application delivery
solution and hybrid cloud ready?
If you are looking for the introduction to the 10 steps series or any of the individual steps:
  1. Get a Cloud
  2. Use a Service Catalog
  3. Adding Cloud Operations
  4. Centralize Business Logic
  5. Real Process Improvement
  6. Human Aspect
  7. Retail Web Shop
  8. Curing Travel Woes
  9. Exploring Financial Services
  10. Agile Cloud Service Integration

So stay tuned as this list's tackled one-by-one over the coming weeks and months to provide you with a clear direction towards your very own application delivery in the cloud happiness.