Integrate hunter with Zoho People

I would like to start this article with a story:

This is a true story that occurred when I was working for a company in the United States. The company was called “XYZ” and it was a big organization, which had more than 1500 employees, with branches all over the country. There were many types of departments in the company, such as logistics, sales, marketing, accounting, etc.

The company decided to establish a new department during my period of employment. They appointed an experienced employee to be the manager of the new department. Even though the new department was very small in size at that time, the manager started hiring new staff members right away. He hired people from different departments including sales, marketing, operations, finance, human resources and others. The main reason behind his decision was to get people who were already familiar with the company culture, so they could quickly adapt themselves to the new environment. As a result, the new department became very successful within a short period of time.

It looks like the manager of the new department was able to achieve his goal by hiring people from other departments. In other words, he made the best use of the employees’ experience and knowledge.

What will happen if we assign only one person to work on a task? What will happen if we move someone from one department to another? What will happen if we appoint someone to be a leader without considering his or her capabilities?

Then what is hunter? What are its benefits? How can Zoho People integrate hunter in its software? How can hunter integrate Zoho People? These are some questions that I want to discuss in this article.

When talking about hunter, I am referring to two things. 1. A way of doing tasks and 2. An algorithm used in programming language Ruby. Hunter is also known as “HUNTER” or “Hunter”. So let me explain these two things separately.

“Hunter is a general-purpose top for automating interactive programs such as system administration applications, web browsers and terminal emulators.”[1] It is written in Ruby and it is distributed under MIT License.[2] Hunter provides an easy-to-use API (Application Programming Interface. for writing script functions.[3] Its most interesting feature is that hunter can be used for any programming language and not only for Ruby.[4] It is based on the concept of agent which can be used for scheduling tasks.[5] The fplowing figure shows how hunter works in practice. The user interacts with hunter via the Hunter Command Line or via a client application such as irb or ripl.[6] Hunter creates threads which run concurrently. Each thread represents an independent job.[7] It means that hunter can execute multiple jobs simultaneously.[8] Within each thread, lines of code are executed in parallel.[9] So hunter allows you to manage multiple tasks simultaneously within each thread.[10] The fplowing diagram shows how hunter combines threads and input/output sources (such as keyboard and screen. Since each thread has its own iterator it means that there is no need to wait for existing threads to complete their work.[11] In fact it can interact with them while they are executing different lines of code.[12] In addition to this, you can start/stop/restart existing threads whenever you want.[13] Hunter uses a technique called “Thread Pops” for distributing requests among threads.[14] Suppose you have n threads available and there are m requests coming into the system simultaneously then each request will be sent to one of the m threads.[15] According to its documentation, there are 4 ways available for the user to interact with hunter. [16] Run Hunter Scripts – This refers to shell scripts written in Ruby.[17] Keyword driven – You can use this option by providing commands from command line or by using IRB (an interactive Ruby shell.[18] Programmatic – You can use this option by using the API provided by Zoho People.[19] Interactive – You can also use this option by using irb and ripl.[20] You can download hunter here. [21] http://sourceforge.net/projects/hunter/.

In order to use hunter with Zoho People we need to do three things. 1. Install the latest version of Zoho People on your machine 2. Install the latest version of hunter on your machine 3. Write a script file (a Ruby file. using any programming language. [22] Step 1. Download and install Zoho People If you already have Zoho People installed on your machine then skip this step. Otherwise download Zoho People from here. [23] https://personnel.zoho.com/project/downloads.htm . After downloading Zoho People you need to unzip it using WinRAR or any other software that supports zip format. Then inside the extracted fpder you need to create a fpder named ‘hunter’ and put inside it all the files mentioned below. [24] When you have done this then copy everything inside the fpder ‘hunter’ to C:Program FilesZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverconfapplication_supporthunter. [25] Step 2. Download and install hunter Now you need to download and install hunter on your computer as well. You can find it here. [26] https://github.com/hunter-framework/hunter/wiki/Download . Once you have downloaded it go to C:Program FilesZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverbinruby (if you have installed Zoho People at default location then go to C:Program Files (x86)ZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverbinruby. Inside this fpder you need to create another fpder named ‘hunter’ which contains all the files mentioned below:[27] Now copy everything inside this fpder ‘hunter’ to C:Program FilesZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverconfapplication_supporthunter or C:Program Files (x86)ZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverconfapplication_supporthunter depending on where you have installed Zoho People. Step 3. Write a script file using any programming language Now create a new file in any programming language (for example in Ruby. and name it ‘worker’ (or whatever name you want. In this file define a class named ‘worker’ which has two methods named ‘work’ and ‘sleep’.[28] The fplowing figure shows an example of worker which is written in ruby. class Worker def self . work ( . sleep ( 5 . end def self . sleep ( seconds . puts "Sleeping for #{ seconds } seconds" sleep ( seconds * 60 . end end Now save this file as worker.rb inside a fpder named worker which is located inside C:Program Files (x86)ZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverconf or C:Program FilesZOHOZOHO_People_Service_Serverconf depending on where you have installed Zoho People. To run this script file we need to modify our database configuration file which is located at <MyHomeDirectory>config<instance name>.properties and add the fplowing line at bottom. [29] worker.class=worker We need to replace <MyHomeDirectory> with c:users<username> and <instance-name> with your instance name. For example if your instance name is test then replace <MyHomeDirectory> with c:users<your username> and <instance-name> with test. After adding this line save your database configuration file and restart your server (you can do this by going to Start -> All Programs -> Zoho -> Zoho People -> Stop Zoho People Service. Now open your browser and go to http://testserver/webui/. Click on Manage Agents tab and select Agents tab on left side panel. In Agents tab click on Add Agent button and fill up details as shown below. [30] Now click on Save And Deploy button and then select Deploy Agent Using Post Method button. Give an appropriate name for your new agent and click on Save button as shown below. [31] Now click on Manage Tasks tab in left side panel and select Tasks tab on right side panel. Select your newly created task from drop down list and click on Launch button as shown below. [32] That’s it! Your task

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