“Conceptual” question. Using C8 self-manged (I guess it’s the same for C8 SaaS?), there is an “Inbound Connectors API” as component. Looking in deep in the doc., don’t see (or missed) the purpose of this API. When and for what goal, do I need it? Perhaps, never for some kind of applications?
Moreover, reading about Inbound Connectors in general (here: https://docs.camunda.io/docs/components/connectors/connector-types/#inbound-connectors), saw this: “If a process definition contains an element referencing an inbound connector, the connector code will be first executed when the process definition is deployed and the deployment has been detected by the connector Runtime.” Is this strategy necessary to smartly handle incomping event/data for several running processes that come from the same definition?
Thanks for guiding me. PS: I investigate C8 platform component dependencies for my client.
Thanks Hassang. Difficult to understand your very concise response. Don’t sure your response covers the 1st part of my question? Since “Inbound Connectors API” is an API, When and for what goal, do I need/use it? 1 or 2 lines of code calling this API may help… Thanks.
Hi,
Inbound Connector is meant to allow you to start a workflow instance from an external (incomming) event.
For example, If you want to trigger a workflow based on a dedicated message delivered to a dedicated Kafka topic, you will add a Kafka Inbound Consumer as “start” event in your bpmn
The text you have quoted tell that when you deploy you bpmn in order to be able to execute it, then automatically, the Camunda connector “pod” (executable), will automatically start a dedicated “Kafka Consumer Connector” in this POD, and start to listen messages in the Kafka Topic.
So depending connectors you need to take into account specificities. (I did not enter into details here as it will be uncomprehensible if you don’t know Kafka)
So a Connector, is in fact some sort a predefined “JobWorker” (with some specificities compare to workers: dynamic start at BPMN publish, usage of {{secret.NAME}} placeholder, and some more)
So you will find ready to use connector (provided directly in the docker image of Camunda Connector, you can find community once, but you will need to add them in the image (adding jars), or create your own connectors (and add them to the images)
So you will find inbound connector, like HTTP webhook, etc..
Many thanks Gerald for your highlight. What is very clear now for me, is that “inbound connector” always implies “start event”? Beyond, your text totally answers to my question.
From this rule, I’ve a new concern, I cannot listen to a Kafka message in an intermediate step of my process? Common message reception in BPMN can be start or intermediate, but Kafka is only “start”. If you confirm that, I’ve to find alternate BPMN flow structure, I guess? Thanks again