How to create a LifeTime Plugin

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Hélio Dolores

Staff

How to create a LifeTime Plugin

Discussion

OS Certified

Integration

API

How-to

Lifetime

Plugin

Hi,

In version 8.0 we've introduced LifeTime SDK. This new feature provides a lot of information about your infrastructure that you can use to build your own LifeTime plugins. Pretty much what you can see in your LifeTime today was made available to you through an API.

Plugins are special applications that are seamlessly integrated into LifeTime:

If you want to create a LifeTime plugin, do the following:

1. Access LifeTimeSDK by typing "LifeTimeSDK" in the url of your LifeTime environment
2. Follow the 'click here' link at the end of the page

3. Choose your LifeTime Plugin development Environment
4. Install LifeTime SDK on the environment

5. You should take this opportunity to also export Sample Data to your plugin development environment. This is important because all the data provided by the APIs is located in LifeTime's server (e.g. the Environment List [Development, Quality, Production]), so if you call any API action from a Development server, those calls won't return any data unless, of course, you have exported it to that environment.

6. Now you can start the coding part. You can do this in two different ways, by clicking on the "Start developing you plugin now!" link:

... or on the new Icon that will appear in Service Studio (when connected to the plugin development environment) by the time SDK installation finishes.

This template already has:
- The bootstrap action to register the plugin in LifeTime
- The WebService to configure if the plugin is visible to the current LifeTime user
- A UI template and styles to make your plugins look like part of LifeTime
- All the APIs ready to use!

7. Check our sample plugin! With the version 8.0 we have made available in the forge a sample plugin called Geo Performance that gives you an idea of how to create a simple plugin that uses all the APIs. It is also an example of how we built some parts of the brand new Performance Monitor, including the data aggregation process!

8. Plug it! Since the plugin was developed in a separate environment from LifeTime you need to integrate it once you finish developing and testing it. For that, simply grab the Solution and publish it in LifeTime Environment's Service Center.

9. Share it with us! :)

We hope this post helps you get started in the LifeTime SDK. We also hope that you guys can help us making this product better and better by increasing the forge with lots of LifeTime plugins... or by sharing great ideas!

Regards,

Hélio Dolores

16 May 2013

Gonçalo Martins

Staff

Outstanding post Hélio.. :)
Here is the answer to the curiosity I had and that shared with you in BarCamp..

Cheers,
Gonçalo M.

16 May 2013

Richard Pearson

Interesting! This fits very well with a forge component I'm in the middle of developing.

Watch this space in the coming weeks for more information...

Cheers,
Richard

16 May 2013

Miguel Grilo

Congrats, very useful post.
Best Regards Miguel Grilo

16 May 2013

Hélio Dolores

Staff

Thank you guys!

I'll be here waiting to see your amazing plugins :)

16 May 2013

Tiago Leão

Staff

Very good post Hélio!!!

This is the kind of posts that should be even more frequents.

Let's keep the good job =)

16 May 2013

Vasanth

Could you help on detailing the steps to install the LifeTimeSDK in local. It is not exist by default. I have tried changing the url context root as https://localhost/LifeTimeSDK/ which doesn’t help.

27 Jun 2013

1 reply

28 Jun 2013

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Paulo Duarte Ferreira

Staff

Vasanth wrote:

Hi Vasanth,

Which edition of the platform are you using (Community, Enterprise)?

LifeTime and its SDK are only available for the Enterprise edition. If that's your case:

Go to LifeTime (e.g. https://<your_lifetime_server>/LifeTime) and register your local environment there (Infrastructure tab);
Access https://<your_lifetime_server>/LifeTimeSDK and follow the steps on Hélio's post

Cheers,
Paulo Ferreira

28 Jun 2013

Vasanth

Thank you Paul, As local env is community edition, Now I am connecting to remote server which is Enterprise Java(JBOSS) Edition. Does it be included in the Java installation platform by default ? or it requires explicit installation ? I am not able to access it https://<REMOTE SERVER NAME>/LifeTimeSDK

15 Jul 2013

Paulo Duarte Ferreira

Staff

It requires explicit installation, but it is mentioned just like System Components in the Install Checklist:

Note that LifeTime itself should only be installed in one environment (usually Production), so you're either connecting to the wrong server name, or that installation step was skipped.

Just to be sure, the remote server you tested is running 8.0?

Cheers,
Paulo Ferreira

15 Jul 2013

MVP

Hi,

I was wondering if it's possible to hook an action on the deploy when deploying applications?

1. select application
2. click deploy
3. before actual deploy do some action based on applicationId, retrieve some data for example
4. actual deployment
5. after-deploy do some action, put data on new environment (data you just have retrieved from 3)

09 Oct 2013

Hélio Dolores

Staff

Hi,

I'm sorry but that kind functionality is not available yet.

Regards,
Héliod

09 Oct 2013

Daniel Martins

Hello, just to add one extra note:

Keep in mind and don't forget, in order to your PluginConfiguration (callback) WebService work properly you need to set your eSpace Web Service NameSpace property to: https://LifeTimePlugin/

Hope it helps you!
Best regards.

Daniel Martins.

01 Jul 2014

Hélio Dolores

Staff

Hi Daniel,

This 'Web Services Namespace' problem should only happen if you don't follow the complete procedure, because the value should already be set on the plugin template.
Do you have multiple eSpaces on the application?

Thanks for the feedback!

08 Jul 2014

Tiago Neves

Hi,

As of today, can I develop a LifeTime plugin in a Personal Environment?
In my Personal Environment I do have LifeTime SDK Application installed. I can reference it from Service Studio, but I don't have that icon "New LifeTime Plugin" to give me the bootstrap action to register the plugin in LifeTime and the WebService to configure if the plugin is visible to the current LifeTime user.

So, can I really achieve the development of a LifeTime plugin on my Personal Environment?

21 May 2015

MVP

I try to install the lifetimeSDK, but it says
"You cannot develop a plugin in *server* because Platform Server version 8.0.0.0 is required."

But we have P9-amsterdam installed?

19 Jun 2015

Matthias Preuter

MVP

I tried to start with a LifeTime Plugin, but stumbled upon the following problems / questions:

in Develop a LifeTime plugin in 4 steps;

- step 2 keeps on "Exporting 0%"

- after step 3 and 4; i was able to create a new plugin from a template

The template

When i first opened the template i saw that

- a bootstrap was created to register the pluin is created

- a Samplescreen with references to Layout_LifeTImeSDK is created

- LifeTImeSDK is referenced

- LifeTimeMonitoring is referenced

Difference with GeoPerformance sample

In the sample Plugin; the Harvest is done within the Plugin, in the new plugin created from the template there a LifeTImeMonitoring/RequestData is referenced and it looks like the Harvest of these data is done bij LifeTimeMonitoring eSpaces, is this right? Or do we have to get the RequestData ourselfs like in the GeoPerformance sample?

13 Jan 2017

Robin Kouwen

I have similar issues when trying to export the Sample Data.
Process ExportSampleData is giving Errors.
OS Version 10.0.405.0 and 10.0.604.0 both have similar issue.