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Ark Automate

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Ark-Automate is a platform that allows office users and software developers to automate business or everyday processes by simply sketching the steps of their process. By using simple flowcharts or powerful BPMN in their process outlines, users can create small software solutions using RPA that finish their tasks much faster and more reliably.

Installation & Setup

Repository Setup

Please install:

  1. Node.js (at least v10.19) using the installer
  2. npm (at least v6.14) which is normally installed with Node.js
  3. nodemon(at least v2) using npm install nodemon -g

Then to complete the repository setup:

  1. Clone this repository using git clone https://github.com/bptlab/ark_automate.git
  2. Change into the repository folder using cd ark_automate
  3. Install all dependencies by running npm install in the server and frontend directory. You can easily do this by running cd server/ && npm install && cd .. && cd frontend/ && npm install && cd .. in the projects root directory

Set up Heroku

For this step, an invitation to our Heroku project is necessary. Please create yourself a Heroku account, which you link to your Github profile. Then write a short mail to our team mailing list to be added to the project.

  1. Run in the server directory npm install -g heroku
  2. Login to Heroku by running heroku login and than login to your heroku account
  3. Create a new .env file in the server directory
  4. Add the MongoDb URI to your .env file by running the following command in the server directory heroku config:get MONGODB_URI -s -a ark-automate >> .env

Setup development tools

Tools being used in this project are EsLint and Prettier. For information on how to configure them see our coding standards

Run application

Before running, please always make sure to have the most recent module versions installed using npm install in the server, as well as the frontend directory. To run a development preview of the app, navigate to the server directory and run npm run local to start the API server, navigate into the frontend folder and run npm start again to also start the frontend. Now check http://localhost:3000/ to have a look at the app.

To run the local client, follow the steps in the Readme of the local client.

Product Demo

Watch the video

Contribute

Contribution and feedback are encouraged and always welcome. For more information about how to contribute, the project structure, as well as additional contribution information, see our Contribution Guidelines. By participating in this project, you agree to abide by its Code of Conduct at all times.

Contributors

The main contributors to the project are the four members of the 2020/21 Bachelor Project of Professor Weske's BPT Chair at the Hasso Plattner Institute:

These four participants will push the project forward as part of their bachelor's degree until the summer of 2021.
At the same time our commitment to open source means that we are enabling -in fact encouraging- all interested parties to contribute and become part of its developer community. Regarding Open Source, this project underlays a MIT license which you can find here

Project documentation

Our architecture, as well as our current vision of the project can be found in our wiki. Please also see the code documentation on its own website including examples.