Creating Your First ProcessMaker Package

Learn how to develop a custom package for ProcessMaker Platform to extend its functionality.

Overview

Extend ProcessMaker's functionality with custom functions and/or integrations with third-party services by developing your own package.

Requirements

The following are required or assumed to successfully create a package for ProcessMaker Platform:

Requirement	Function
Working programming knowledge	To code the package. Familiarity with Laravel & PHP is a big plus. This is an advanced development topic.
Access to ProcessMaker Platform	CLI access to a ProcessMaker instance with super user privileges. Typically, this is done in a local development environment.

Step 1: Creating the Package

First, let's start by creating a sibling directory to your ProcessMaker Platform installation folder. This example names the new directory processmaker-plugins. For example, if your ProcessMaker installation is located at /opt/processmaker, you can create the processmaker-plugins directory at /opt/processmaker-plugins.

Clone and follow the instructions for setting up the package-skeleton template from our GitHub repository into your processmaker-plugins directory.

Then edit your packages composer.json file, similar to the below:

{
    "name": "processmaker/my-first-package",
    "friendlY_name": "My First Package",
    "description": "Package Skeleton to develop a package for ProcessMaker Platform"
}

Next, locate the the composer.json file for your ProcessMaker application (not to be confused with your packages composer.json file).

You can find the applications main composer.json file at the root of the ProcessMaker application, assuming you are following along, it would be located at /opt/processmaker/composer.json

Now we need to add a reference to your package in the repositories block of the composer.json in order for the application to know of it's existence.

"repositories": 
    [
        {
            "type": "path",
            "url": "../processmaker-plugins/my-first-package"
        }
    ]

Extras

There are still a few things that will need to be fixed by hand:

You will need to rename your core controller from PackageSkeletonController.php to your package's name (e.g. MyFirstPackageController.phpLocated here, assuming you are following along: /opt/processmaker-plugins/my-first-package/src/Http/Controllers )

Now, let's confirm that the controller name is right in addition to the filename.

Open your renamed controller and change the controller name, assuming you are following our conventions, to MyFirstPackageController .

Step 2: Creating PHP Artisan Commands

A good practice is to make sure your install and uninstall commands work well.

Assuming the package is located within /opt/processmaker-plugins/my-first-package you will want to edit the file /opt/processmaker-plugins/my-first-package/routes/console.php located inside your package to set up the artisan commands.

Depending on your preference, the install and uninstall can also be object oriented and done via classes, which would be located at src/Console/Commands/Install.php and src/Console/Commands/Uninstall.php , respectfully.

The Install Command

Perhaps you want to install a database table with your package for specific configuration needs.

We are assuming that you might have a seeder class named MyFirstPackageSeeder that would be responsible for seeding the database with your table and data.

Artisan::command('my-first-package:install', function () {
    
    Artisan::call('vendor:publish', [
        '--tag' => 'my-first-package',
        '--force' => true
    ]);

    Artisan::call('db:seed',
        [
            '--class' => 'ProcessMaker\Package\MyFirstPackage\Seeds\MyFirstPackageSeeder',
            '--force' => true,
        ]
    );

    $this->info('MyFirstPackage been installed!');
})->describe('Installs MyFirstPackage');

The Uninstall Command

An example of an uninstall command might be to delete your packages assets when uninstalling.

Artisan::command('my-first-package:uninstall', function () {
// Remove the vendor assets
    Illuminate\Support\Facades\File::deleteDirectory(
        public_path('vendor/processmaker/my-first-package')
    );
    $this->info('The package has been uninstalled');
})->describe('Uninstalls package');

Running the Artisan Commands

All artisan commands MUST be run within the ProcessMaker application root directory. E.g. /opt/processmaker

To execute the install command, you would then run this from your terminal:

cd /opt/processmaker

php artisan my-first-package:install

To execute the uninstall command, you would then run this from your terminal:

php artisan my-first-package:uninstall

You may want to additionally execute the following lines to completely eliminate the package from the environment:

composer remove processmaker/my-first-package --ignore-platform-reqs

Step 3: Building Front End Assets

If you are doing any kind of UI related work or sometimes even other backend work that you need to include npm modules, here is how you can go about it.

Make sure to add all your configuration and dependencies within your packages package.json , located in the root directory of your package (/opt/processmaker-plugins/my-first-package if you have been following along).

Then run your npm commands:

npm install && npm run dev

Step 4: The Service Provider

Finally, the service provider class is what contains the instructions that laravel will execute when your package is loaded.

Here is an example of what can be contained inside a service provider class, specifically within the boot method:

public function boot(){
        //Load any blade views
        $this->loadViewsFrom(__DIR__ . '/../resources/views/', 'my-first-package');
        //Publish package specific assets
        $this->publishes([
            __DIR__.'/../public' => public_path('vendor/processmaker/my-first-package'),
        ], 'my-first-package');

        if ($this->app->runningInConsole()) {
            require(__DIR__ . '/../routes/console.php');
        } else {
            // Assigning to the web middleware will ensure all other middleware assigned to 'web'
            // will execute. If you wish to extend the user interface, you'll use the web middleware
            Route::middleware('web')
                ->namespace($this->namespace)
                ->group(__DIR__ . '/../routes/web.php');
            Route::middleware('api')
                ->namespace($this->namespace)
                ->prefix('api/1.0')
                ->group(__DIR__ . '/../routes/api.php');
            //Push the menu class, if you have one
            Route::pushMiddlewareToGroup('web', AddMyFirstPackageMenus::class);
        }
        //Load any migrations you may have for the database
        $this->loadMigrationsFrom(__DIR__ . '/../database/migrations');
        // Register a seeder that will be executed in php artisan db:seed
        $this->registerSeeder(MyFirstPackageSeeder::class);
        // Complete the connector boot
        $this->completePluginBoot();

    }

This can also be used in the install and uninstall commands above.