How to Incorporate Standard Activities in a Workflow Process

How to Incorporate Standard Activities in a Workflow Process

Oracle Workflow comes seeded with commonly used standard activities that you can use in any workflow process. The standard activities are:

• And
• Assign
• Block
• Compare Date
• Compare Number
• Compare Text
• Continue Flow
• End
• Get Monitor URL
• Loop Counter
• NoOp
• Or
• Role Resolution
• Start
• Default Voting Message Yes/No
• Wait
• Wait For Flow

And

When multiple transitions flow into the And function activity, the And function activity is considered complete when all of the transitions are completed.

Assign

The Assign function activity has four attributes: Item Attribute, Date Value, Numeric Value, and Text Value. Use the Assign function activity to assign an item attribute specified in the Item Attribute value with the Date Value, Numeric Value, or Text Value. Determine whether to use the Date Value, Numeric Value, or Text Value based on the date type of the item attribute.

Block

The Block function activity blocks the activity until a complete activity API call is made.

Compare Date

The Compare Date function activity has two attributes: Test Value and Reference Value. Reference Value contains an item attribute. The Test Value is a constant. The Compare Date function activity compares the value of the item attribute in Reference Value to the constant in Test Value and produces results labeled Equal, Greater Than, Less Than, or Null (if the reference value is null). The Compare Date attributes are both of datatype Date.

Compare Number

The Compare Number function activity has two attributes: Test Value and Reference Value. The Reference Value contains an item attribute. The Test Value is a constant. The Compare Number function activity compares the value of the item attribute in Reference Value to the constant in Test Value and produces results labeled Equal, Greater Than, Less Than, or Null (if the reference value is null). The Compare Number attributes are both of datatype Number.

Compare Text

The Compare Text function activity has two attributes: Test Value and Reference Value. The Reference Value contains an item attribute. The Test value is a constant. The

Compare Text function activity compares the value of the item attribute in Reference Value to the constant in Test Value and produces results labeled Equal, Greater Than, Less Than, or Null (if the reference value is null). The Compare Text attributes are both of datatype Text.

Continue Flow

Continue Flow is used for master and detail coordination. The master process can start detail processes, and you can use the Continue Flow and Wait for Flow function activities to coordinate a process flow between master and details. The Continue Flow function activity signals the flow of a waited process to continue. The Continue Flow function activity has two attributes: Waiting Activity Label and Waiting Flow. The Waiting Activity Label identifies the label of the activity that was waiting for the completion of this Continue Flow function activity. Waiting Flow identifies whether the waiting activity is master process or a detail process.

End

The End function activity marks the end of a process. You can use it to return result codes. The End function activity is not required; it is only for visual purposes. Get Monitor URL The Get Monitor URL function activity retrieves the Workflow Monitor and stores the URL in the item attribute specified. You can use the other attribute, administration Mode, to specify whether the Workflow Monitor should be run in admin mode.

Loop Counter

You can use the Loop Counter function activity to limit the number of times the Workflow

Engine can transition through any particular activity. Use the Loop Limit attribute to specify the limit. If the loop limit is not reached, the activity completes with a result code of Loop; otherwise, the activity will complete with a result code of Exit.

NoOp

The NoOp function activity has no functionality. Use it as a placeholder in the workflow process.

Or

When multiple transitions flow into the Or function activity, the Or function activity is considered complete when any one of the transitions is completed.

Role Resolution

The Role Resolution function activity selects one user from a role with multiple users. You can use its Method attribute to specify whether you want the user to be selected based on the number of open notifications or just sequentially assigned. The first method is Load Balance and the second method is Sequential.

Start

The Start function activity marks the beginning of a process. The Start function activity is not required; it is only for visual purposes.

Default Voting Message

The Voting Message is a message you can use to create a notification activity that tallies responses from users or roles, depending on whether Expand Roles is checked. The message subject and the body make up the message that will be sent to the users or roles. It has a Respond message attribute with the internal name of RESULT.

You can specify the list of possible responses for this Respond message attribute using a specific lookup type. In the notification activity that uses the voting message, you must create a Number Type attribute with each possible response value as the name. These attributes will capture the percentages necessary for the response values to become the result. If the value of the attribute is set to Null, then the value will be treated as the default value. In other words, if you have two response values, Yes and No, and you have the attribute Yes set with a value 50 and the attribute No set as Null, anything less than 50 percent Yes will be a No.

You can specify the voting option using the Voting Option attribute. You can select Require All Votes to have the Workflow Engine tally all responses only after all votes have been cast. If not all votes are received before the notification times out, then the timedout transition is used. Tally on Every Vote instructs the Workflow Engine to keep a running tally after each vote is cast. If the notification times out, the response percentage to date is used. Wait for All Votes instructs the Workflow Engine to wait until all votes come in before tallying response percentages.

The only difference between this option and the Require All Votes option is that, if the notification times out before all of the votes came back, the Wait for All Votes option will still tally the response percentages before the time-out occurred.

Wait

The Wait function activity defines the specified waiting period for a response. It has six attributes. The wait mode specifies whether the wait is calculated by absolute date, day of month, day of week, relative time, or time of day. If the Wait mode is set to absolute date, enter the final date into the Absolute Date attribute. If the Wait mode is set to day of month, enter the day into the Day of Month attribute. If the Wait mode is set to day of week, enter the day of the week into the Day of Week attribute. If the Wait mode is set to relative time, enter the number of days you want to wait in the Relative Time attribute. If the Wait mode is set to time of day, enter the time of day into the Time of Day attribute.

Wait for Flow

Wait for Flow is used for master and detail coordination. The master process can start detail processes, and you can use the Continue Flow and Wait for Flow function activities to coordinate the process flow between the master and details. The Wait for Flow function activity signals the process flow to wait. The Wait for Flow function activity has two attributes: Continuation Activity Label and Continuation Flow. The Continuation Activity Label identifies the activity label that must be completed before the Wait for Flow function activity continues. The Continuation Flow activity identifies whether the waiting activity is a master process or a detail process.