Automating the boring stuff Using the Mendix Platform and Model SDK to automate repetitive tasks. Presented by Alistair Crawford and Iain Lindsay at the Mendix Maker Meetup in London on 17th October 2019

1. Mendix Platform and Model SDK
Iain Lindsay (AuraQ) | Alistair Crawford (Mendix)
17 OCTOBER 2019
Automating the boring stuff

2. Optimising Business Performance
 Introductions
 SDK Overview
 Core use cases
 Getting Started
 Samples / examples
o Analysing naming standards
o Changing colour of microflow activities
o Creating validation microflows
o Generating model documentation
| Agenda

3. Optimising Business Performance
| Introductions
 Alistair
o https://github.com/mxcrawford
 Iain
o https://github.com/lindski
LinkedIn

4. Optimising Business Performance
| SDK Overview
 Two SDKs – Platform and Model
 Platform provides access to model server
o Creating an app
o Creating a branch
o Opening a revision
 Model provides access to the application model
o Retrieve information about all application objects
o Manipulate existing objects
o Create new objects
 Typescript based SDKs
o Strongly typed javascript

5. Optimising Business Performance
| Core use cases
Migrate Analyse
Export Modify
Analyse your Mendix
applications. Identify
duplication, complexity, non
conformance to dev
standards.
Update your Mendix
applications. Automate
repetitive and/or time
consuming tasks
Export your Mendix
applications to code,
documentation or test
cases.
Convert legacy
applications into
Mendix applications.

6. GETTING STARTED

7. Optimising Business Performance
| Basic Knowledge
 TypeScript
 when.js and Promises
o https://docs.mendix.com/apidocs-mxsdk/mxsdk/working-with-when.js-and-promises-in-typescript
 Mendix documentation
o https://docs.mendix.com/apidocs-mxsdk/mxsdk/
o https://apidocs.mendix.com/modelsdk/latest/index.html

8. Optimising Business Performance
| Dev environment
Dependencies
 Node + NPM
https://nodejs.org/en/download/
 Typescript
npm install –g typescript
Initialising a new project
mkdir my-project
cd my-project
npm init --yes
npm install mendixmodelsdk
mendixplatformsdk when @types/when –save
tsc --init

9. Optimising Business Performance
| Connecting to the platform
 Generating an API key
o Developer key not project key

10. Optimising Business Performance
| Connecting to the platform
 Creating an online working copy – Existing project

11. Optimising Business Performance
| Connecting to the platform
 Creating an online working copy – New Project

12. Optimising Business Performance
|Understanding the metamodel
 Reverse engineer an application
 Recognisable objects are easier to understand
 https://github.com/lindski/mx-sdk-modelexport
o Export objects as code functions.
o Builds on https://docs.mendix.com/apidocs-mxsdk/mxsdk/generating-code-from-the-model

13. SAMPLES / EXAMPLES

14. Optimising Business Performance
| Analysing naming standards
 Enforcing Best Practises
o Check your model against your team’s standards
Demo: Report on all Microflows that don’t
have an appropriate Prefix
https://github.com/mxcrawford/sdk-examples

15. Optimising Business Performance
| Analysing naming standards
 Set your rules

16. Optimising Business Performance
| Analysing naming standards
 Analyse

17. Optimising Business Performance
| Changing colour of microflow activities
 Make your model easy to identify
 Demo: Make sure all Microflows are set to their correct colour based on the nature
of their action
 Create Object Change Object Delete Object
https://github.com/mxcrawford/sdk-examples

18. Optimising Business Performance
| Changing colour of microflow activities
 Load it

19. Optimising Business Performance
| Changing colour of microflow activities

20. Optimising Business Performance
| Creating validation microflows
 Typical pattern for committing objects
o Main commit microflow
o Sub validation microflow
 Auto creates validation microflows with basic rules
o Treats every supported attribute as required.
 Stores microflows in separate folder
https://github.com/lindski/mx-sdk-validationcreator

21. Optimising Business Performance
| Generating model documentation
 Generate documentation for your
application artefacts
 Extend with custom documentation
o Enrich with Markdown
 Generates documentation using
Docsify
o https://docsify.js.org/#/
 Add your own documentation tool
o E.g. Confluence
https://github.com/AuraQ/MendixDocumenter

22. Optimising Business Performance
| Draw inspiration
 Some of many existing examples to be found
o https://forum.mendixcloud.com/link/questions/12432
 More ideas
o Enforcing Best practises and standards
 e.g. check and alert for any commits in a loop
o Migrating over to Mendix
 e.g. convert HTML page to Mendix page
o Accessibility
 Make sure all pages have h1 widget
 Make sure all Delete, New and Save buttons are correct “colour”
o Pure fun
 e.g. Microflow Art by converting image to Microflow

23. QUESTIONS?

24. | CONTACT
33 Graham Road
Malvern
Worcestershire
WR14 2HU
01684 571960
enquiries@auraq.com
www.auraq.com