ACACIA – General Documentation

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Contents

References

Initial Setup

ACACIA requires a connection to a Mendix account through Mendix PAT and API key. The tenant admin will be redirected to a settings screen on first login. Based on the choosen credential level, either the tenant admin, or its users, or both can connect a Mendix account. Credentials on user level, when provided, will be used before credentials on tenant level.

Credential level

The tenant admin can choose the credential level:

  • Tenant Only: in this case connection the the Mendix account is done only on tenant level. Use a service account as all generated applications will be linked to this account. Users do not need to provide ther own credentials, but generated applications will be connected to the account provided on tenant level.
  • User Only: in this, the tenant admin cannot link a Mendix account, but all individual users are required to provide their credentials.
  • User override Tenant: the tenant admin can provide generic account credentials, but this settings allows user to provide their own. Generated applications will be linked to the user account if specific credentials are set, otherwise the credentials on tenant level will be used.

Connecting to your Mendix account

In this settings screen, you should enter:

  1. Mendix user name: your Mendix account email.
  2. Mendix user ID: the OpenID of your Mendix account. You can find this in your developer profile > settings > personal data
  3. Mendix API key: follow the description at https://docs.mendix.com/community-tools/mendix-profile/user-settings/#profile-api-keys to generate an API key
  4. Mendix PAT: follow the description at https://docs.mendix.com/community-tools/mendix-profile/user-settings/#create-pat to generate a Mendix Personal Access Token (PAT). Make sure to at least tick mx:modelrepository:repo:write, mx:modelrepository:write, mx:modelrepository:write and mx:app:create

Accounts

Under administration or home the tenant admin can add new accounts. After creation, you can click the ‘Send password reset mail’ to actively inform the user. Alternatively, the user can always go to the tool, click ‘Forgot password’ and then enter his/her email address to receive a reset link.

Accounts can be de-activated and re-activated when nessecary. An account can be unblocked when it has been blocked due to multiple false logins.

Template apps

Note: currently this only works with for tenant admins. Therefore, the credential level needs to be set to ‘Tenant Only’ or ‘User overrides tenant’.

Supported versions

A template app has to match one of the supported versions. Currently this is 10.12.x and 10.18.x. If your template is built in a different version, you cannot use the template.

Process

The process of adding a template app consists of the following steps:

  1. Create a new template
  2. Layouts will be extracted from the template
  3. Set the default layouts to be used for this template

This process will run in the background after creating a new template. Only templates that have completed this process can be selected for conversions. You can monitor the progress on the template overview screen.

1. Create new template

Under template apps you can define your own template apps. A template app must be published in the Mendix market place (public or private/company). Use the UUID as presented in the market place, select the Mendix version and add a distinghuishable name. You can make the template publicly available (for all tenants that use the app), but make sure in that case the template is in the public Mendix market place. New templates will have the status ‘Pending’.

Layout extraction

After adding a new template, ACACIA will automatically extract all layouts present in the template. Once that process has been completed, the status will be ‘Received’.

Set default layouts

When layouts have been received, you can then edit the template app and select the default layouts for this template app, for different types of screens. Only after this stage, status will become ‘Completed’ after which the template can be used in conversions. In case you want to refetch the layout, hit the button in the right upper corner.

API keys

With API keys, ACACIA can be integrated with other tools, including enterprise modeling tools such as the Simplfied Modeling Platform. Authorization then uses the API key instead of username/password through the front-end. Be careful when adding an API key without end date. Review your API keys on a regular basis.