Instruction Definition format
An Instruction Definition XML file comprises of an XML document header, an <InstructionDefinition> parent XML element, and various sub-elements describing specific aspects of the definition.
The sub-elements are outlined below, some of which are described in more detail in later sections.
At a high-level, the XML format is as follows:
Instruction Definition XML structure
+-- (XML document header)
+-- InstructionDefinition
+-- Comments
+-- Payload
+-- ParameterJson
+-- SchemaJson
+-- AggregationJson
+-- Workflow
+-- ResponseTemplateConfiguration
+-- Resources
| +-- Resource
| +-- Content
+-- TaskGroups
| +-- TaskGroup
+-- SignatureNote that child elements of the <InstructionDefinition> element can appear in any order.
The individual elements have the following purposes (elements highlighted in blue are links to more detail further down in the page):
Element | Required | Purpose | Database column |
|---|---|---|---|
Yes | The parent element in the XML document, including basic properties of the Instruction Definition such as its name, description, type, version. All other XML elements within the document are child elements of this parent element. | N/A | |
InstructionDefinition\Payload | Yes | Contains the Instruction Payload, written in the Tachyon Agent Language, that should be sent to the Tachyon Agent(s), including placeholders for any parameter values which are substituted when the Instruction is issued. The content of this element is typically marked up as CDATA within the XML (to simplify escaping of reserved XML characters). | InstructionDefinition.Payload |
InstructionDefinition\Comments | No | Contains optional comments about the Instruction Definition provided by the author. | InstructionDefinition.Comments |
Yes | A JSON representation of the data structure which will be created to store Responses from Tachyon Agents when they reply to this Instruction. The content of this element is typically marked up as CDATA within the XML. | InstructionDefinition.SchemaJson | |
No | A JSON representation of the data structure which will be created to store summarized ("aggregated") Responses from Tachyon Agents, and the grouping and aggregate operations which define how the data should be summarized. The content of this element is typically marked up as CDATA within the XML. | InstructionDefinition.AggregationJson | |
No | A JSON representation of the parameters for this Instruction Definition. Parameters can be supplied by the user at the point that the Instruction is issued. The content of this element is typically marked up as CDATA within the XML. | InstructionDefinition.ParameterJson | |
InstructionDefinition\Workflow | No | A JSON representation of the Tachyon Workflow state machine, and other metadata, to be used if the Instruction Definition should not follow the corresponding default approval workflow. | InstructionDefinition.Workflow |
InstructionDefinition\ResponseTemplateConfiguration | No | A JSON representation of the logic that Tachyon Consumers may use to provide customized rendering of Responses for the Instruction, such as charts and graphs. This topic is described in more depth here: Custom Response Visualizations | InstructionDefinition.ResponseTemplateConfiguration and InstructionDefinition.ResponseTemplateId |
No | A container element for one or more | N/A | |
InstructionDefinition\Resources\Resource | Yes | Defines the name of a resource, and contains one or more | InstructionDefinitionResource table |
InstructionDefinition\Resources\Resource\Content | Yes | Defines the properties and metadata about the (platform-specific) content for an individual resource, and the content itself (represented as base-64 encoded binary). The content of this element is typically marked up as CDATA within the XML. | InstructionDefinitionResource.Content |
No | A container element for one or more | N/A | |
InstructionDefinition\TaskGroups\TaskGroup | Yes | Defines the path of a Task Group under which this Instruction Definition should be grouped. | TaskGroups and Task |
No | Contains digital signature information for the XML file. | N/A |