Configuring a monitor for IBM App Connect

Prerequisites

• You must have an IBM App Connect account.

• In the App Connect dashboard, use Create flows for an API to create a flow for an API and an API Key.

  For more information, see Creating a flow for an API.

  For demonstration purpose, this example uses the following parameters:

  • A model that is named API_log is created.

  • The properties for the model are defined based on the monitor type and the scope of the flow (as illustrated in Figure 1)

    

    Figure 1: Defining properties for API flow

  • The operation, Create API_log, is selected as it corresponds to a POST.

    

    Figure 2: Operation for API flow

  • To implement the flow, a Log Toolbox is added to log the messages that are passed to the API.

    

    Figure 3: Defining the log toolbox for API flow

• Collect the following information from the Manage tab of the created API flow:

  • URL for the App Connect service (Figure 4)

  • API key name (Figure 5)

  • API key value (Figure 6)

  Figure 4: URL for the App Connect Service

  Figure 5: API Key Name

  Figure 6: API Key Value

Use Create API key and documentation link to create the API key value to share outside of Cloud Foundry organization.

Procedure

Use the following steps to configure an Analytics widgets monitor with an App Connect service in IBM Process Mining:

1. Open a project, and then go to the Action Hub page.

2. On the Action Hub page, click Create service.

3. In the Create a new service dialog, ensure that the Service Type is Rest API, and then in the Service title field, type the name of the service (for example App connect API Service).

4. In the Description field, type a description for the service that you create.

5. In the URL field, type the URL for the App Connect Service obtained from the IBM App Connect account. For more information, see Figure 4.

6. Set Allow self-signed certificates to False.

7. Set Share with others to True to share the App Connect service within the organization.

8. In the Authentication type section, click API key.

9. In the Position field, select Header.

10. In the API key name field, type the API key name for the App Connect. For more information, see Figure 5.

11. In the API key value box, type the API key. For more information, see Figure 6.

12. Click Create.

You can update an existing service with the information fetched from App Connect. For more information, see Managing a service.

13. On the Action Hub page, click Create Monitor.

14. In the Details step of creating a monitor, specify the name for the analytics widget monitor, provide a description for the monitor, and then click Next.

15. In the Monitor step of creating a monitor, do the following steps:
    a. In the Monitor type field, select Analytics widgets.
    b. In the Select dashboard field, select the dashboard for which you want to create the monitor.
    c. In the Select what widget to monitor field, select the widget for which you want to create the monitor.
    d. Click Manage filters to add a filter to the monitor. For more information on how to apply filters on monitors, see Applying filters in Action Hub.
    e. In the Recurring outputs section, select the required filter for displaying recurring outputs.
    

16. In the Schedule step, define the criteria for running the monitor, and then click Next.

17. In the Service step, click the App Connect service that is created (App connect API Service), and then click Next.

18. In the Parameters step, do the following steps:

    a. In the URL suffix field, type the name that is given for API model in the IBM App Connect account. In this example, the API model is named as API_log.
    

    b. In the HTTP method field, select POST.
    

    c. Click Verify connection to verify the connection to the URL.
    

    d. Set Activate monitor to Active to activate the monitor when it is created.
    

    e. Click Create.
    

19. On the Action HUb page, click the three dots on the monitor tab, and then click Run.

For more information on creating an Analytics widget monitor, see Setting a monitor for Analytics widgets.

Result

After a successful execution of the created monitor event, you can verify the App connect log to check for new connection messages from IBM Process Mining.

Figure 7: App Connect Log with new connection messages

You can now modify the App Connect flow as required and parse the data that is received from the monitor.