From past observations, I feel our documentation can be hard to understand and navigate for some cases and new users.
[NOTE] This is a WIP post which we’ll constantly update with further pointers/references. Any contributions done via comments will be merged into this content and the corresponding comment will be deleted (we’ll keep the original author credited, we just wish to have a single source of truth)
Here, I provide a condensed TL;DR version you will probably take when starting with Corteza and specific features.
V1 provides an overview of the more important parts. Based on the feedback/responses, I’ll expand to more specific/advanced topics.
The home page is available here where you will find a few sections
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Low-Code Platform Developer Guide talks about developing low-code applications, such as our CRM, writing automation scripts, and workflows.
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Platform Developer Guide talks about open source contributions to the project
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DevOps Guide talks about setting up Corteza on your computer/server as well as maintaining and configuring
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Changelog talks about the changes.
When setting up a new Corteza instance
You’ll primarily focus on the DevOps Guide, where you can find details on running Corteza, example configurations (running offline with configuration examples, running online with configuration examples), available configuration options (server and corredor), and troubleshooting steps.
The docs also provide instructions for setting up a reverse proxy so you can access the services running inside Docker containers. Currently, we only provide instructions for Nginx reverse proxy.
When upgrading your Corteza instance
When upgrading, you should pay attention to the steps outlined here as well as the changelog to get familiar with what has changed and the implications the upgrade may bring.
Base Low-Code development
The integrator guide will be your best friend here.
Firstly, you’ll get familiar with the general flow and the user interface
At this point, looking at the page block and the module field references can come in handy to see what is available and how it was intended to be used.
Defining business process automation
After configuring the base of your low-code application, you will learn about automation.
The automation home page provides a quick overview of what is available, how it’s intended to be used, and any pitfalls you could encounter.
[NOTE] read about execution flow details as it outlines some important facts about how our automation systems work.
You have two options – workflows and automation scripts. Note that you will need to run the Corredor server to run automation scripts
Workflows provide a nice user interface to piece together your business processes, while automation scripts provide a more low-level scripting approach (it runs in Node.js).
[NOTE] You can execute automation scripts from inside workflows.
Integrating with external services
To integrate with external services (such as 3rd. party APIs), you’ll generally need to write some automation (depending on the integration, you might be better off with automation scripts or a combination of both) and some custom API endpoints (to handle API calls from that external service.
You have two options Integration gateways and sink routes
Sink routes are the older low-level approach to the problem, and they do need a bit more to set up and use.
Integration gateways are a more managed, friendlier approach where they are configured directly from the user interfaces (sink routes are configured inside automation and the CLI).