Book Image

Rapid Application Development with OutSystems

By : Ricardo Pereira
Book Image

Rapid Application Development with OutSystems

By: Ricardo Pereira

Overview of this book

OutSystems is a software development platform that speeds up the build phase by abstracting code and making almost everything visual. This means replacing textual language with visual artifacts that avoid lexical errors and speed up code composition using accelerators and predefined templates. The book begins by walking you through the fundamentals of the technology, along with a general overview of end-to-end web and mobile software development. You'll learn how to configure your personal area in the cloud and use the OutSystems IDE to connect with it. The book then shows you how to build a web application based on the best architectural and developmental practices in the market, and takes the same approach for the mobile paradigm. As you advance, you'll find out how to develop the same application, and the great potential of reusing code from one paradigm in another and the symbiosis between them is showcased.The only application that'll differ from the application in the exercise is the one used in business process technology (BPT), with a focus on a common market use case. By the end of this OutSystems book, you'll be able to develop enterprise-level applications on the web and mobile, integrating them with third parties and other systems on the market. You'll also understand the concepts of performance, security, and software construction and be able to apply them effectively.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Section 1: OutSystems 101
5
Section 2: The Magical Path of the Backend
10
Section 3: Create Value and Innovate with the Frontend
16
Section 4: Extensibility and Complexity of the OutSystems Platform

Process BPT overview

First, what is a Process?

In OutSystems, a Process is seen as a way to carry out all the steps and phases of a task within a company, such as a recruitment Process, handling an order, or a help desk support request.

In order to create the Processes for our application, we have to understand very well the guidelines that they must follow and what kind of activities must take place during them. It is important to define the business rules very well so that the Process runs and guarantees the correct functioning of the application.

To support these business rules, the platform provides a set of visual artifacts, all of them very intuitive and easy to use.

Let's work through the following steps in order to start creating our Process:

  1. We open the Processes tab, right-click on the Processes folder, and choose Add Process:

Figure 15.1 – The Add Process option in the Processes tab

  1. Then we name our Process...