Property

Description

Action Display Name

This property specifies name to be displayed for the action in the Activity List. The name entered here overrides any display name that may be configured for this action in the Actions.xml file.

To

This property specifies the resource(s) who have to take up the Work action. It is tagged with the Ignore Unavailable Resources property which in turn is tagged with Alternate Resource Allowed. This will be explained in detail later.

Subject

This is the subject of the Work assignment. The subject can be customized for each resource. To assign a subject to the Work action, click the 'Subject' button in the Properties pane for the Work action. A new window pops up. In this window, customize the subject by appending the various fields to the subject.

Notes

This is the message that describes the Work action task assignment sent to the resource(s). The notes can be customized for each resource. To assign notes for the Work, click the 'Notes' button in the Properties pane for the Work action. A new window pops up. In this window, customize the content by appending the various fields to the notes.

AdvanceUI Fields

The property is used to specify the advance UI fields of the Work action. These fields, which define the Work action, include the input variables, action outputs and output variables. In addition, the AdvanceUI template can be specified along with the GroupUI template. The Work action can be configured to be Role-based or Non-Role-based with the Role-based version allowing the flexibility of exposing different sets of fields according to the role selected. To assign action outputs, click the 'AdvanceUI Fields' button in the Properties pane for the Work action. A new window pops up. In this window, specify whether the action will be Role-based or Non-Role-based, using the radio buttons provided, and proceed to specify the UI fields in subsequent windows.

Custom Fields

This property is used to add the custom fields to be used to display application data as well as value in variables and content in the activity list when this action is executed. For information on how to set custom fields see Using Custom Fields

Redirect URL

This property is used to get the URL of the web page to redirect the client to, in the case of synchronous execution of the action. To assign the URL of the web page, click the 'Redirect URL' button in the Properties pane for the Work action. In the window that pops up, enter the URL.

Custom Document View URL

This property is used to get the URL of the page to which the custom document view dlls does a post. The dlls will have to be configured in the WorkflowNET.Config file to enable the automatic posting. The data posted to the page are application, workflow, executionid, executiondetailsid, and activityid. The posted data can be retrieved as Request.Form["activityid"].

Min. Acknowledgements

This property (referred to as Min.Ack), which can be specified as a number or percentage, is the minimum number of resources who should acknowledge receipt of the Work assignment. This property is related to the 'Timeout warning for Acknowledgement' and 'Timeout for Acknowledgement' properties. To illustrate, when 'Timeout for Acknowledgement' is reached, the activity first checks if the acknowledgement count is less than Min.Ack (if it is set). If it is, the activity will be removed from all activity lists. If the 'Min.Ack' has already been satisfied, then the activity will be removed from the non-acknowledgers' lists. If the Min.Ack value is 0, then the activity checks if the acknowledgement count is less than Max.Ack (if it is set). If it is, the activity will be removed from all activity lists. Else the activity will be removed from the non-acknowledgers' list. If both Min.Ack and Max.Ack are set to 0, then there should be at least one acknowledgement within the set time, otherwise the activity will be removed from all activity lists.

Max. Acknowledgements

This property (referred to as Max.Ack), which can be specified as a number or percentage, is the maximum number of resources who should acknowledge receipt of the Work assignment. If 'Timeout for Acknowledgement' is specified and achieved, and the 'Min.Ack' is also satisfied, then the activity waits for action from those who acknowledged. If the Min.Ack value is set to 0, then it checks if the acknowledgement count is less than Max.Ack. If it is, the activity will be removed from all activity lists. Else the activity will be removed from the non-acknowledgers' list. If both Min.Ack and Max.Ack are set to 0, then there should be at least one acknowledgement within the set time, otherwise the activity will be removed from all activity lists.

Timeout for Acknowledgement

This property (referred to as Time For Ack.) specifies the time until which acknowledgement is allowed i.e. the time until which the Work action will wait for acknowledgement. If Min.Ack is set and is not reached, the activity is removed from all activity lists. If Min.Ack is 0, it will check if acknowledgement count is less than Max.Ack. If it is, the activity is removed from all activity lists. Else the activity will be removed from the non-acknowledgers' list. The activity will remain in the acknowledgers' activity list and wait for action from them.

Click here to view the flowchart for Timeout for Acknowledgement.

Timeout Warning for Acknowledgement

This property (referred to as Time Out Warning For Ack.) specifies the time at which a warning is provided to a resource to acknowledge the activity assigned to him/her. If the resource does not acknowledge within this time the engine is notified with a warning. Thus if 'Min.Ack' is set, and it is not satisfied before the given time then a warning is sent. If Min.Ack is 0, it will check for Max.Ack. If the acknowledgement count does not reach the Max.Ack value within the set time, a warning is sent. If both Min.Ack and Max.Ack are not set, this property is ignored.

Click here to view the flowchart for Timeout Warning for Acknowledgement.

How Acknowledgement Properties relates to each other

Affirmative Answer for TaskAssignment Completion [% or Number]

This property is used to check what percentage or number of persons should take action for the Work assignment. Decision for the Work is taken only after the specified number or percentage of resources have taken the action. The activity waits for the resources' action until the 'Timeout for Action' is reached.

Action Min Limit TaskAssignment Completion [% or Number]

This property specifies the minimum number of resources required to act on the Work assignment before the 'Timeout Warning for Action'. If the action limit is reached before the 'Timeout Warning for Action' then the warning message is not shown.

Minimum Time for Action.

This property specifies the minimum time that is required to finish the action. If the resource does not have the minimum time left in the day to complete the action then the alternate resource is selected.

Timeout warning for Action

This property specifies when a reminder has to be provided for the resources to act on the task assignment, if the action count has not been reached. If properties such as Max.Ack, Affirmative Action for TaskAssignment Completion (AAT), and Action Limit (AL) are set, once the property values are reached then a warning is sent to the participant. When the timeout is reached, the following checks are made:

Click here to view the flowchart for Timeout Warning for Action.

Timeout for Action

This property's value is used to decide until what time the activity should wait for resource action. If properties such as Max.Ack, AAT, AL are set, once the property values are reached the activity is removed from the task lists of all the resources. When the timeout is reached, the following checks are made:

Click here to view the flowchart for Timeout for Action.

Hide Responses?

If this property is set to 'No', then users can see the responses of other users in a group response scenario. To view these responses i.e., acknowledgements or task settings, click on the 'Read Acknowledge' button. This will open a new popup with the responses of other users who have acknowledged.

Consider only Business Hours for Timeout?

If this property is set, all the time out calculations will be done based on only the business hours, i.e. leaves and Organization holidays will not be considered. Business hours for the Organization and Resource can be set using the calendar controls (Organization, Resource ) provided.

Forwarding Allowed?

If this property is set then the resource is provided with a Forward button. Using this the resource can forward the activity to another resource

Ignore Unavailable Resources?

If this property is set, when the Task is assigned to the resources list a check is first done to see whether the resource is available. If the resource is not available then a check is made for an alternate resource assigned to the unavailable resource. Simultaneously the value of the property 'Alternate Resource Allowed' is checked. If that is also set, then the Task is assigned to this resource.

Alternate Resource Allowed?

This property is set to assign a particular task to an alternate resource in the absence or unavailability of any resource.

Severity

This property is set to indicate the severity of the Task. It can be set to 'Low', 'Medium', or 'High'.

Send Notification Email

If this property is set to 'Yes', then notification emails will be sent to the resources. If it is set to 'Yes-HTML', then the emails will be sent in HTML format.

Multiple TimeOut Warning

This is used to set recurring timeout warnings that will be sent to the resources who have to take action. To set multiple timeout warnings, click the 'Multiple TimeOut Warning' button in the Properties pane for the Task action. A new window pops up. In this window, set the interval for the recurring warning as well as the output message. You can also set the Recurring Time Interval. This can be used to set a different recurring time out after the first timeout happens. For example, if 'Time Interval' for the property is set as 7 days and 'Recurring Time Interval' is set as 2 days, then the first time out will happen after 7 days and there will be a recurring time out every 2nd day after the 7th day (first) time out.

 Property settings for Work

To set the properties for the Work action click on the Work icon in the design area. The properties corresponding to the Work action will be displayed in the Properties pane of the process designer.

To select the resources to whom this Work is to be assigned, click on the button for the 'To' property. A window pops up (Fig 3.), in which the resources can be selected. An expression can be built to select the resources based on the resource properties. Select a property from the list, then select the operator, type of value (Value, Variable, Content), corresponding value for the property and the logical operator. Add the condition to the expression by clicking the Add button. To end the expression select the 'End' instead of a logical operator. To remove a condition already added to the expression, click the Undo button. After building the expression, click the Update button.

The subject of the Work can be customized. To prepare the Work subject, click on the button for the 'Subject' property. A window pops (Fig 4.) up where the subject can be typed and customized by appending the resource property values. Click the Update button to save the subject.

Notes is the content of the Work task assignment. To prepare the notes, click on the button for the 'Notes' property. A window pops (Fig 5.) up where the notes can be typed and customized by appending the resource property values. Click the Update button to save the notes.

To specify the AdvanceUI fields for the Work action to be assigned, click on the button for the 'AdvanceUI Fields' property. A window pops up (Fig 5.), in which the type of work action – Role or Non Role – can be specified using the 'Role Based View' or 'General View' radio buttons. Click Add button to go to the next window to add the action details.

The window shown below (Fig 5.1) is opened when you click the General View radio button in the previous window. Specify the Advance UI XML configuration file in the File Name field and the GroupUI HTML Template file in the GroupUI File Name to enable multiple responses by a participant. After specifying these values click on one of the radio buttons to view the corresponding parameter window. There are three radio buttons – Action Output, Input Variables and Output Variables – below these drop downs that can be used to select the type of parameters to specify.

The window shown in Fig 5.2 is displayed when the Action Output is selected. It can be used to map the outputs of the action with the possible outputs and specify whether the output is a task completion maker.

The user interface shown in Fig 5.3 is used to specify the second set of AdvanceUI fields while adding the Work action. This interface is displayed when the user selects the Input Variables radio button in above window shown in Fig 5.1. The input variable value can be specified here.

The user interface shown in Fig 5.4 is used to specify the third set of AdvanceUI fields while adding the Work action. This interface is displayed when the user selects the Output Variables radio button in window shown in Fig 5.1. The output variable and the HTML element mapped to it are specified here.

The window shown in Fig 5.5 is used to define a role for the Work action. It is displayed when you use the Work action for the first time. You need to add roles for the Work action and click on Next to continue to the Role Based View main window Fig 5.7. To add a new role click on the Define Filter button in the row to add a role. To add new roles you must click on the Save and Add row button.

The window shown in Fig 5.6 is used to build the role filter condition for adding a new role. You need to build the filter condition using resource properties and assigning appropriate discrete values, variables or content to complete the condition. To add the new condition you must click on the Add button.

The window shown in Fig 5.7 is displayed when you have added roles if you are using the Work action for the first time. If you are not using the action for the first time it will be opened when you select the Role Based View radion button in the ActivityUI main window (Fig 5.). From this window you can select the role, XML file name and GroupUI HTML Template and click on the appropriate radio button to input Action Outputs, Input Variables or Output Variables in windows that are identical to those for the General View.

Redirect URL is the URL of the web page to which the client will be redirected if the Work action is executed synchronously. To set the URL, click on the button for the 'Redirect URL' property. A window pops (Fig 6.) up where the URL can be typed in the text editor. The URL can also be specified by selecting the variable or content that contains it and clicking 'Append'. Click the Update button to save the URL.

Custom Document View URL is the URL of the web page to which the application details will be posted by the Custom Document View dlls if this is configured in the WorkflowNET.config file. To set the URL, click on the button for the 'Custom Document View URL' property. A window pops (Fig 7.) up where the URL can be typed in the text editor. The URL can also be specified by selecting the variable or content that contains it and clicking 'Append'. Click the Update button to save the URL.

Multiple TimeOut Warnings are repeated warnings sent to the resources regarding timeout of the Work. To set multiple timeout warnings, click on the button for the 'Multiple TimeOut Warning' property. A window pops (Fig 8.) up where the Time Interval can be typed and the Recurring? option set to 'Yes'. The output message can also be typed here. You can also set the recurring time out in the 'Recurring Time Interval' column. More than one timeout warning can be set by clicking the New row button and entering the new timeout warning settings. Click the Update button to save the settings.