How to Create and Deploy a Custom Publishing Activity?

Pre-requisites

You must have the following installed on your machine:

• Java 8
• Maven

You must have access to download quark maven artifacts to update the file settings.xml in the folder .m2 to register quark maven repository through the following code:

<server> 
    <id>qrk-visualstudio-com-qrk-contentplatform</id> 
    <username>contentplatform</username> 
    <password>[PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN]</password> 
</server> 

• Eclipse

Process

To create and deploy custom publishing activity:

1. Open Eclipse and create a new maven project.

2. Add the dependencies that your custom activity requires along with the following dependencies in pom.xml.

   <dependency> 
       <groupId>com.quark.qcep.contentservices</groupId> 
       <artifactId>qcep-contentservices-remoting-stubs</artifactId> 
       <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> 
   </dependency> 
   <dependency> 
       <groupId>com.quark.qcep.automation</groupId> 
       <artifactId>qcep-automation-activities</artifactId> 
       <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> 
   </dependency>
   

   Add <repositories> and <distributionManagement> sections to your pom.xml

   <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>qrk-visualstudio-com-qrk-contentplatform</id>
            <url>https://qrk.pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/contentplatform/maven/v1</url>
            <releases>
                <enabled>true</enabled>
            </releases>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>true</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </repository>
    </repositories>
    
    <distributionManagement>
        <repository>
            <id>qrk-visualstudio-com-qrk-contentplatform</id>
            <url>https://qrk.pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/contentplatform/maven/v1</url>
        </repository>
    </distributionManagement>
   

   You must also add any third-party dependencies that your custom activity requires.

3. Create a package com.quark.qcp.cas.publishing.activity.ext and add the file activity.java to the package.

4. Add your channel definition in the file ChannelConfig-ext.xml, which is available in folder ext in the s3 bucket of already running automation services.
   See the following example of the channel ChannleConfig-ext.xml, sends an asset content to a particular folder in S3 bucket:

   <channel id="sendToS3" name="Send to S3" publishingProcess="sendToS3" type="deliver">
       <description>Sends the content to S3</description>
           <param name="BUCKET_NAME" ask="true"/>
           <param name="FOLDER_NAME" ask="true"/>
           <param name="REGION_NAME" ask="true"/>
           <param name="ACCESS_KEY" ask="true"/>
           <param name="SECRET_KEY" ask="true"/>
           <!-- <param name="PASSWORD" ask="true"/><param name="OVERWRITE_EXISTING" ask="true">TRUE</param><param name="NAME" ask="true"/> --> 
           <!-- Name with which the desired  resource would be copied to the given S3 folder location-->
   </channel>
   

5. Create a file that has the process definition. For example, see the following file named SendToS3ProcessConfig.xml:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
          xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util" 
          xmlns:pub="http://www.quark.com/qpp/publishing/schema"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
               http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
               http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
               http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd
               http://www.springframework.org/schema/util
               http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util.xsd
               http://www.quark.com/qpp/publishing/schema
               http://www.quark.com/qpp/publishing/schema/publishingprocess.xsd">
       <!-- PROCESS DEFINITIONS -->
       <pub:process id="sendToS3">
       <!-- A process to send file(s)/folder(s) to S3 location. -->
           <pub:activity class="com.quark.qcp.cas.publishing.activity.SendToS3">
               <description>An activity that sends (i.e. adds / updates) content to S3 at the specified location</description>
               <property name="activityName">
                   <value>SendToS3</value>
               </property>
               <property name="bucketName">
                   <value>PARAM:BUCKET_NAME</value>
               </property>
               <property name="folderName">
                   <value>PARAM:FOLDER_NAME</value>
               </property>
               <property name="regionName">
                   <value>PARAM:REGION_NAME</value>
               </property>
               <property name="accessKey">
                   <value>PARAM:ACCESS_KEY</value>
               </property>
               <property name="secretKey">
                   <value>PARAM:SECRET_KEY</value>
               </property>
           </pub:activity>
           <pub:activity-stream-mapper>
               <property name="activityName">
                   <value>SendToS3</value>
               </property>
               <property name="inputStreamNames">
                   <map>
                       <entry key="SourceContent" value="RequestContent"/>
                   </map>
               </property>
           </pub:activity-stream-mapper>
       </pub:process>
   </beans>
   

6. Add ProcessDefinition to classpath by through import for the process definition file in ProcessConfig-ext.xml. This is also available in the folder ext in the s3 bucket of already running automation services.
   For example:

   

7. Package this project using the following maven package command.

   D:\.....\qcp-cas-custom-activity> mvn package
   

   This creates a jar file in the target directory inside the source directory of the project.

   

8. Copy the files creates/updated in the steps from 4 through to 7 in the folder ext in the s3 bucket of already running automation service.

   

9. Add all the third-party dependencies such as aws-java-sdk-core-1.11.795.jar and joda-time-2.8.1.jar (including transitive dependencies) inside the folder ext in the S3 bucket of already running automation service as shown in step 8.

10. Restart the automation services container using the following command:

    docker restart qcpautomationservice
    

11. Verify whether the new channel has been deployed by executing following GET REST request:

    {{PROTOCOL}}://{{MACHINE_NAME}}:{{PORT}}/api/v1/publishingService/getChannel?channelId=sendToS3
    

    

12. Debug custom activity remotely:

    1. Connect to the updated automation services remotely to debug by attaching to it at port 61411.
    2. Import the debug configurations and update the project to be debugged.

When there are issues while executing an activity/process/channel that you have created, fix the code and update the files associated to the folder ext in the s3 bucket.