Hello Google Glass from Infor Process Automation

As a continuation of my Google Glass project, my next step is to write Hello World on Google Glass using Infor Process Automation (IPA).

As a reminder of my project, I’m writing an application to show M3 picking lists on Google Glass using Event Analytics and Infor Process Automation to have rich interactive picking lists in Glass with a list of items to pick, quantities, stock locations, item image from Infor Document Archive, and walking directions on a warehouse plan.

Architecture

From a software architecture point of view, we have the following tiers:

• I’m wearing Glassware and they are connected to the Internet
• Google’s servers periodically communicate with my Glass
• My IPA server is located in a Local Area Network (LAN) at the office behind a firewall.

Timeline card

To keep the proof-of-concept simple, I use the Google Mirror API; that’s simpler than using Glass Development Kit (GDK). A sample HTTP Request to insert Hello World in a static card in my Glass timeline looks like this with the proper OAuth 2.0 token:

POST https://www.googleapis.com/mirror/v1/timeline HTTP/1.1
Host: www.googleapis.com
Authorization: Bearer ya29.HQABS3kFLP2b-BsOWMFyGUpUv4JPAhKeEnDbLcjDUAHREBK6mYYVAadIa68S6A
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 29

{ "text": "Hello from IPA" }

Note: For the purposes of this proof-of-concept I bootstrapped the OAuth 2.0 token manually by copy/pasting it from another computer where I already had the Android Development Tools (ADT) and the Glass Java Quick Start Project.

The resulting timeline card looks like this where the black pixels are see-through pixels in Glass:

Process Automation

IPA can make HTTP Requests using the Web Run activity node. With WebRun, we can specify the following parts of an HTTP Request: scheme (HTTP/HTTPS), host, port number, method (GET/POST), path, query, Basic Authentication, HTTP Request Body, Content-Type, and HTTP Request Headers.

Here is my sample WebRun for Glass:

Problems and rescue

At first, I ran into the following problems:

1. I didn’t know where to set the scheme (HTTP/HTTPS); the Web Root seemed to me like it was only used to set the host and port number.
2. The User id and Password fields seem to support Basic Authentication only, not OAuth 2.0.
3. I need to set the OAuth 2.0 token as a variable because it expires and must be renewed every hour, but the WebRun activity node doesn’t support variable substitution in the Authorization header (CTRL+SPACE and <!var1> are not supported).
4. I didn’t see the Header string field at first because when the input field is empty it has no border which makes it hard to spot.
5. The Header string occupies only one line of height so it seems to indicate that it only accepts one HTTP Request Header.
6. The Content-Type field didn’t propose application/json in the drop down list, so I had to hack into the LPD file with Notepad and write it and XML-encode it manually.
7. The WebRun failed to execute and returned an HTTP 400 error without additional information.
8. We cannot set a proxy like Fiddler in the WebRun configuration to intercept the HTTP Request (header and body) and HTTP Response (header and body) which makes it hard to troubleshoot.
9. The WorkUnit log only shows the HTTP Response body which is only a quarter useful.

I sent an email with the problems to James Jeyachandran (j…@infor.com), the Product Manager for IPA at Infor Product Development whom I know from my previous work on Lawson ProcessFlow Integrator (PFI) and IPA. It has always been a pleasure to work with James for his availability and responsiveness. Once more he impressed me as he called me back within four minutes. He was interested in my Glass project, he addressed my questions, and to assist me he graciously made available Samar Upadhyay s…@infor.com, one of the software engineers of IPA. After troubleshooting together, here are the respective answers to my problems:

1. The scheme can be set in the Web Root (as shown in the screenshot above).
2. The OAuth 2.0 token can be set in an Authorization header in the Header string (as shown in the screenshot above).
3. Samar said he will add variable substitution to the Header string.
4. Samar said he will make the Header string field wider.
5. Samar said he will make the Header string field multi-line.
6. Samar said there is a new version of IPA that adds application/json as a possible Content-type.
7. Samar said that’s a known problem with Content-type application/json and there is a bug fix available to correct it. Meanwhile, James said I can add it as an additional Header string; for that I had to use Notepad again to add the two Header strings on two lines. Also, Samar said he will attempt to upgrade my server with the new version of IPA.
8. Samar said he will look into adding an optional proxy configuration for host and port number like we can do in web browsers.
9. Samar said he will look into adding an option to log the full HTTP Request and Response.

After that collaboration we had a working proof-of-concept within 20mn.

Result

Here is the resulting WorkUnit log:

And here is the resulting vignette in my Glass:

Future work

The next step will be to get the OAuth 2.0 token automatically, and to display the M3 picking list onto Glass.

Conclusion

That was a proof-of-concept to write Hello World from Infor Process Automation onto Google Glass using the WebRun activity node to make an HTTP Request to the Mirror API.

That’s it!

I want to specially thank James Jeyachandran and Samar Upadhyay for their support and responsiveness, and for their enthusiasm with this project. They will be at Inforum 2014.

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