CCOW Context Agents

CCOW Context Agents

Context agent components provide services to context participant applications via the context manager. The LEADTOOLS CCOW SDK supports both ActiveX and Web Agents.

ActiveX Agents

• To implement a context agent, create a class that implements the Leadtools.Ccow.IContextAgent interface.
• The class implementation is required to be a COM object. As a result, the ComVisibleAttribute is required when declaring the class.
• The difference between context agents (mapping, annotation and action) is in the way the ContextChangesPending method is implemented.

• Register the implemented custom CCOW agent as follows:

  regasm "/register" "CurrentDirLeadtools.Agent.dll"

  Where the Leadtools.Agent.dll is the implemented CCOW agent assembly name.

Web Agents

• To implement a web context agent create a class that extends the Leadtools.Ccow.Services.CcowContextAgentService, and host it as Self-Hosting or IIS Hosting.
• To consume the implemented web context agent in the context manager, implement an ActiveX agent that extends WebContextAgent:
  • The implemented class overrides the WebContextAgent.Service property only.
  • The class implementation is required to be a COM object. As a result, the ComVisibleAttribute is required when declaring the class.

• Register the implemented CCOW agent that consumes the Web agent as follows:

  regasm "/register" "CurrentDirLeadtools.Agent.dll"

  Where Leadtools.Agent.dll is the implemented CCOW ActiveX agent that consumes the Web agent.

NOTE:

Implementation using different agent types at the same time is allowed (For example: using an ActiveX mapping agent and an annotation Web agent at the same time).

Agent Types

Mapping Agents

Mapping agents provides an automatic means for adding additional identifier items to an identity subject. A mapping agent is responsible for computing the mapping between the identifier items set by an application that instigated a context change transaction and additional identifier items that also represent the subject. The additional identifier items enable all of the participant applications to synchronize to the same subject even when different identifiers in different participant applications represent the same subject.

The existence of mapping agents is transparent to the applications since the agents only interact with the context manager. The context manager allows each mapping agent that is present to add data to the identity subject it services prior to the second phase of a context change transaction. For example, a patient-mapping agent might obtain its data from a master patient index system. Each subject has one mapping agent.

Annotation Agents

Annotation agents provide the means for automatically setting all of the data that describes a particular annotation subject. The context manager allows each annotation agent that is present to set the data for the annotation subjects it represents. The data is annotated after the mappings are performed by the mapping agents and prior to the second phase of a context change transaction (i.e. survey).

For example, a demographics annotation agent might obtain patient demographics data from a patient registration system. Like a mapping agent, an annotation agent only interacts with the context manager. There can be only one annotation agent for each annotation subject.

Action Agents

Action agents are a type of context agent that service a context action request associated with a specific action subject. Like other context agents such as annotation agent, an action agent only interacts with the context manager and is transparent to the applications. An action agent generally interacts with the user via its user-interface to obtain additional inputs needed to perform the action or communicate information to the user about the status of the action.