Displaying Approved Workflow Items

To display only approved entities, you’ll add a new finder, then a getter that uses it in your service layer. The new methods will serve the purpose of getting only entities with the proper workflow status. Then you can display only those entities in the portlet’s search container. Service Builder makes this easy.

Adding a Finder for the Entry

If you look in docroot/html/guestbook/view.jsp, you’ll see that entries are retrieved from the database for display in the search container using the following code:

<liferay-ui:search-container>
    <liferay-ui:search-container-results
        results="<%=EntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntries(scopeGroupId,
                        guestbook.getGuestbookId(), searchContainer.getStart(),
                        searchContainer.getEnd())%>"
        total="<%=EntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntriesCount(scopeGroupId,
                        guestbook.getGuestbookId())%>" />
    ...
    </liferay-ui:search-container-row>
    <liferay-ui:search-iterator />
</liferay-ui:search-container>

The getter methods used are those responsible for populating the Search Container. They need to include the workflow status as an additional parameter.

First, you need a finder method to expose. Open service.xml and add this tag below the current list of finders for the Entry entity:

<finder name="G_G_S" return-type="Collection">
    <finder-column name="groupId"></finder-column>
    <finder-column name="guestbookId"></finder-column>
    <finder-column name="status"></finder-column>
</finder>

Run Service Builder.

Exposing the Entry’s New Finder in the Service Layer

It’s all well and good to have a finder, but the portlet’s service layer needs to expose it to be of any use. Open EntryLocalServiceImpl and delete these getter methods:

public List<Entry> getEntries(long groupId, long guestbookId, int start,
		int end) throws SystemException {
	return entryPersistence.findByG_G(groupId, guestbookId, start, end);
}

public int getEntriesCount(long groupId, long guestbookId) throws SystemException {
	return entryPersistence.countByG_G(groupId, guestbookId, WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED);
}

Add these methods:

public List<Entry> getEntries(long groupId, long guestbookId, int status, int start,
		int end) throws SystemException {
	return entryPersistence.findByG_G_S(groupId, guestbookId, WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED, 
        start, end);
}

public int getEntriesCount(long groupId, long guestbookId, int status) throws SystemException {
	return entryPersistence.countByG_G_S(groupId, guestbookId, WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED);
}

Since there’s nowhere in the portlet where an Entry’s workflow status should be ignored, it’s a best practice to replace the current getters with appropriate ones.

Updating the View Layer to Display Approved Entries

Back in the view.jsp, find the following tag, which currently retrieves the entries from the database for display in the search container:

<liferay-ui:search-container-results
	results="<%=EntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntries(scopeGroupId,
					guestbook.getGuestbookId(), searchContainer.getStart(),
					searchContainer.getEnd())%>"
	total="<%=EntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntriesCount(scopeGroupId,
					guestbook.getGuestbookId())%>" />

Replace the above tag with this one:

<liferay-ui:search-container-results
	results="<%=EntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntries(scopeGroupId,
					guestbook.getGuestbookId(), WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED, searchContainer.getStart(),
					searchContainer.getEnd())%>"
	total="<%=EntryLocalServiceUtil.getEntriesCount(scopeGroupId,
					guestbook.getGuestbookId(), WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED)%>" />

As you’d expect, the calls to getEntries and getEntriesCount now call the updated methods you created in the local service implementation, so that the search container is only populated with approved entries.

Open init.jsp and add the following import:

<%@ page import="com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow.WorkflowConstants" %>

The Entry entity is now fully enabled for workflow. Do the same thing for Guestbooks next.

Adding a Finder for the Guestbook

In the portlet’s view.jsp, you can see the code that displays Guestbooks in the <aui:nav cssClass="nav-tabs"> section. Here’s the call to the local service implementation that gets the list of Guestbooks from the database:

 List<Guestbook> guestbooks = GuestbookLocalServiceUtil
            .getGuestbooks(scopeGroupId);

This call doesn’t yet account for the workflow status of the Guestbooks.

Open service.xml again and add the following finder, below the existing finder tags for the Guestbook:

<finder name="G_S" return-type="Collection">
    <finder-column name="groupId"></finder-column>
    <finder-column name="status"></finder-column>
</finder>

Run service builder.

Exposing the Guestbook’s New Finder in the Service Layer

Open GuestbookLocalServiceImpl. Find the current method with the signature public List<Guestbook> getGuestbooks(long groupId). Delete it and add this one in its place:

public List<Guestbook> getGuestbooks(long groupId, int status) throws SystemException {
	return guestbookPersistence.findByG_S(groupId, WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED);
}

Run Service Builder. Leave the other getter methods alone, even though they don’t account for workflow status. The Guestbook Admin portlet should display all of a site’s Guestbooks, regardless of workflow status, and these getters are used to populate its search container. What you will do later is add a column to the Guestbook Admin portlet’s Search Container to display guestbooks’ statuses.

Updating the View Layer to Display Approved Guestbooks

Open view.jsp, and find this method call:

 List<Guestbook> guestbooks = GuestbookLocalServiceUtil
            .getGuestbooks(scopeGroupId);

Replace it with this one:

 List<Guestbook> guestbooks = GuestbookLocalServiceUtil
            .getGuestbooks(scopeGroupId, WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED);

All you did here was add the parameter that marks a Guestbook as approved in the workflow.

Now open the view_search.jsp, located in docroot/html/guestbook. Find the scriptlet, denoted by <%,that comes right after the closing </aui:form> tag. As in the view.jsp, replace the current line starting with List<Guestbook> guestbooks... with this one:

 List<Guestbook> guestbooks = GuestbookLocalServiceUtil
            .getGuestbooks(scopeGroupId, WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED);

Now both entities are enabled for workflow, and the Guestbook portlet’s view layer is modified accordingly. But what about the Guestbook Admin Portlet that’s accessed through the portal’s Site Administration section? What should the strategy be there?

Modifying the Guestbook Admin Portlet to Display Workflow Status

The Guestbook Admin portlet currently displays the Guestbooks for a site in a Search Container, which is how all of Liferay’s portlets work. Like those portlets, you should include the workflow status as a column in the Search Container.

Figure 1: The Message Boards Admin portlet displays the workflow status of its entities.

Open docroot/html/guestbookadmin/view.jsp and find the section where both columns of the search container are populated:

	<liferay-ui:search-container-column-text property="name" href="<%= viewGuestbook %>" />

	<liferay-ui:search-container-column-jsp
            path="/html/guestbookadmin/guestbook_actions.jsp"
            align="right" />

You need a column in between the Name column and the column containing the Actions button, so replace the above columns with these ones:

	<liferay-ui:search-container-column-text property="name" href="<%= viewGuestbook %>" />

	<liferay-ui:search-container-column-text name="status" >
        <aui:workflow-status showIcon="<%= false %>" showLabel="<%= false %>"
            status="<%= guestbook.getStatus() %>" />
    </liferay-ui:search-container-column-text>

	<liferay-ui:search-container-column-jsp
            path="/html/guestbookadmin/guestbook_actions.jsp"
            align="right" />

You’ve added a new <liferay-ui:search-container-column-text> tag, defining a Status column. The <aui:workflow-status> tag makes it easy to convert the int value of guestbook.getStatus() into a String representing the status label value (e.g., the int 02 becomes Pending). It’s displayed with some styling that matches that of Liferay’s core portlets.

Note that you didn’t change the getter method for one that only returns Guestbooks marked as approved in the workflow. In the Guestbook Admin Portlet, you’re allowing all Guestbooks to be displayed with their workflow status.

Testing Workflow

To test that workflow is working properly for both entities, log in to the portal and go to Admin → Control Panel → Configuration → Workflow. Click on Default Configuration and select Single Approver for both Entry and Guestbook.

Figure 2: Enable workflow for entities in the Control Panel.

After saving your selections, navigate to the Guestbook Portlet and try to add a new Guestbook and then a new Entry. If you are the portal administrator, you will receive notifications that you have items waiting in the workflow. The entities won’t appear in the portlet until you assign them to yourself and then approve them in the workflow. There are a couple of additional things to note:

• When workflow is disabled in the Control Panel, the status of the entities is automatically set as approved, and they appear as soon as they are added, just like before you enabled them for workflow.
• In the Guestbook Admin Portlet, the Status field is always displayed, even when workflow is disabled. You’ll just see that added Guestbooks are always marked as Approved, with no review necessary and no workflow notifications sent.

Figure 3: The Guestbook Admin portlet now displays the workflow status of each `Guestbook` in the site.

Your Guestbook Application now supports workflow!