Publishing apps

The apps that are ready to be published are marked with a Publish requested tag in the Apps page of the IBM Business Automation Studio. By publishing these apps, you make them available to Business Automation Navigator for deployment.

To publish an app:

1. Log in to Business Automation Studio.
2. In the home page, click your user name in the header, and set the View Mode to Advanced in the user preferences.
   Working in the Advanced mode gives you access to administration tools that are not available in Basic mode.
3. In the Apps page, identify the app to be published and click Export on the app tile.
   • If no snapshot exists for the app, use the Create a snapshot dialog to specify the snapshot details.
   • In the export dialog, select the Export this project to be published (.zip) file format for the snapshot export.
4. Log in to Business Automation Navigator as an administrator.
5. Under Administration, in the Settings page, ensure Business Automation Navigator is in Platform or Platform and Content mode.
6. Install the Application Discovery plug-in, which provides a connection to the App Engine.
   There are two ways to install the plug-in. If you use one Business Automation Navigator to access apps on multiple App Engine installations, it is recommended to install the plug-in the second way, from the local file system.
   • Install the plug-in from a remote URL.
     1. Under Administration, in the Plug-ins page, add a new plug-in. The plug-in is provided as a .JAR file that is located under the App Engine.
     2. In the JAR file path, specify the URL of the Application Discovery plug-in and load the file
        •  New in 19.0.3  The remote installation of the plug-in is not applicable to V19.0.3.
        •  For 19.0.2  https://appengine:port/navigator/solution-discovery.jar
   • Install the plug-in from the local file system.
     1. Download the Application Discovery plug-in from the following location:
        •  New in 19.0.3  https://github.com/icp4a/ibm-app-designer-samples/blob/master/navigatorPlugin/solution-discovery-19.0.3.01.jar
        •  For 19.0.2  https://appengine:port/navigator/solution-discovery.jar
     2. Under Settings, choose the General tab. In Upload File Path on Server, enter the directory path where you want the plug-in to be uploaded to the Business Automation Navigator container, for example, /opt/ibm.
        For information on how to use Upload File Path on Server, see Registering and configuring plug-ins. If you don't see the Upload File Path on Server option, see Known limitations and issues.
        For information on the mountPath as seen by the Business Automation Navigator container, see Creating volumes and folders for deployment on Kubernetes.
     3. Under Administration, in the Plug-ins page, add a new plug-in. Click Upload to browse your local file system and upload the Application Discovery plug-in you have just downloaded earlier.
7. From the Connections page, create a new App Service definition through which to connect to the App Engine.
   1. Under Connections, go to Connections, and then click New Connection > App Service to create a new connection.
   2. Specify the appropriate definition name and ID, then enter the App Service endpoint URL, for example, https://<app-engine-url>/v1/applications.
8. Open the connection, click Connect, and log in to the App Engine as an administrator.
   Once connected, the Applications tab is enabled, providing a list of apps that are published in the App Engine.
9. From the Applications tab, import the app into the Business Automation Navigator.
   The imported app can be a new app that you're bringing into Business Automation Navigator for the first time, or an app that was deleted from Business Automation Navigator and has been exported to the App Engine again for redeployment.
   When the import of the app snapshot completes, you can return to the Business Automation Studio to mark the app as published.
10. From Desktop, you can create a desktop and add your connection to your desktop.
    Then you can access your desktop from

    https://navigator_URL/?desktop=mydesktop

    For information about creating desktops, see Defining desktops in the IBM Content Navigator documentation.