Templates

Starting point for your own customizations.

Frends Templates are pre-built structures designed to expedite workflow creation and integration processes. They serve as a blueprint that aids in maintaining consistency and minimizing potential errors. By utilizing these Templates, users can save significant time in setting up new integrations, as they provide a reliable and tested starting point tailored for various common tasks.

Starting with Templates

To begin Process development in Frends using Templates, navigate to Templates section in your Frends Control Panel and explore the Template list. Once you have identified a suitable Template, you can select it to initiate the workflow creation.

Templates give a starting point for development for the most common use cases.

In case your Tenant doesn't yet have a suitable Template for you, you can check out more Templates at https://templates.frends.com. This library is organized by targeted system, making it easy to find Templates relevant to your specific system or Process needs.

After selecting a Template, you can customize it to better fit your operational requirements. The Templates are designed to be flexible, allowing you to modify parameters, add Tasks, or adjust conditions to align with your organizational goals. This approach not only facilitates a swift setup but also ensures that all new Processes are built upon a solid and well-tested foundation, minimizing integration errors and expediting deployment.

Templates for Business Users

In the Frends Business Application Portal, Templates serve as the foundation for streamlining workflow creation and management. Business users can easily select and run pre-designed Templates tailored to frequently encountered Processes, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing setup time. The portal simplifies complex Processes by utilizing the Templates, enabling Processes to be executed without the need for Process editing or other technical know-how.

Templates are shown as available Processes in the Business Application Portal.

Instead of being the starting point for Process development, Templates are the Processes that can be executed from the Business Application Portal, to obtain immediate results of the Process using the parameters provided by the user. Just like for normal Process executions in Frends Control Panel, BAP provides access to the execution details to find out what was done, and what the results were.

View showing Process execution details at a glance.

Because it is a separate environment, there is no need to worry about technical details, integration management or consider the integration architecture or setup in Business Application Portal. Each Process executed there are their own instance and entity, separate from the larger whole happening in your Frends Tenant.

Execution details are shown visually, without the extra technical clutter available in Control Panel.

Template Development

Creating new Templates is just as easy as creating new Processes. In fact, Templates are created from the Processes you have created. Just select Update or Create a Template from Process, set up the general values to identify the Template, and you're done.

Template creation parameters.

In case you want to modify your Process to act as an executable Template for Business Application Portal, you might want to set up the key values as Process Variables in the Process Editor.

Specifying Process Variables in the Process Editor makes it possible to adapt the Template to different users and environments.

In general, these values might otherwise be provided as Environment Variables, but for Template use, when they are provided as Process Variables, the values can be filled in when the Template is taken to use, instead of relying on the Environment-specific values. Especially when exporting the Template to another Frends Tenant does this become important, as the new Tenant might not have the same Environment Variables set.

When creating a Process from the Templates, the Process Variables are set for the specific use case.

It is then up to the Template user to provide the Process Variables the values as Environment Variables. The default value for the Process Variables can also be set as Environment Variables, providing information to the Template's user that it might be good idea to do that as well.