Traxtion is an integration and workflow automation system that works in conjunction with Agility. It allows the customer to set up automated workflows that perform catalogue production tasks that don't specifically require user intervention. Traxtion executes the tasks on the server side which means that operators are free to do other work on their workstations while Traxtion is running. The server side approach also ensures that all tasks are executed consistently using predefined settings and provides central logging and status information. PDF generation is a good example of a process that is well suited for automation via Traxtion.
The front end is a web interface that allows users to choose a workflow and select which pages or spreads to process. The progress can then be monitored through the status list. If an error should occur (e.g. a missing image while exporting a PDF) it is logged in the Traxtion database and the user who started the workflow is notified. The web interface also includes a launchpad that directly integrates with Agility. This allows users to import and export data to and from Agility without having to go through the standard client. One application of this is to allow markets to upload last minute changes to price lists.
On the back end Traxtion consists of a central database and a large and growing number of server agents that perform specific tasks. Workflows are configured as series of these agent tasks.
The Traxtion development roadmap includes expanding the pool pagination, language versioning and price versioning modules to be able to use a system of graphics layer classifications and business rules to automatically detect the existence of market or region orientated graphics layers in a layout document in order to make the layer grouping even more intelligent and automated. The goal is that when adding a market layer (language or price) to a document the modules should determine which graphics layers are present and group the market layer with the one with the highest priority for that market. If no suitable graphics layer is present it should notify the user.