Designing processes - EMC Community Network

Designing the Process
Defining activity triggers
One of the most common mistakes when building a business process is to not define activity triggers
correctly. This means that the tasks in an activity may never be triggered.
When you define or change the flow of a process, it is a common mistake to leave an activity with the
default trigger setting of all input flows are selected. Always check that the Trigger tab of each activity
has been defined with the correct number of incoming activities before you install and run the process.
Creating wait activities
When a process must wait for a response, you can create an activity that pauses the process until the
response is received. To pause the process, create an activity that sends a task to an inbox that belongs
to a placeholder user such as dm_bps_inbound_user. Next, configure the post-timer to expire after
the time you need the process to wait, and have the activity complete the task automatically after the
post-timer expires. The process resumes after the system completes the activity.
To create a wait for activity:
1. Add a manual activity to the process.
2. Define dm_bps_inbound_user as the performer for the activity.
The system sends the task to the inbox of dm_bps_inbound_user rather than an actual user’s inbox.
3. In the Timer tab of the activity, define a post-timer to be triggered after the period of time that
you need the process to wait.
4. Configure the action of the post-timer to complete the workitem after the post-timer expires.
The system creates the task, sends it to the nonexistent user, but it is not completed until the
post-timer expires, thus causing the process to wait for a specified time.
Sending tasks to a temporary set of users
In case management applications, it is common to have a requirement in which you need to set up
a temporary set of users that need to perform a task. Within this temporary set of users, you would
specify one of the following options for performing the task:
1. Set a single user from the temporary group to perform the task. In this case, after the first user
selects this task, it disappears from everyone else’s task list.
2. Set all users from the temporary group to perform the task. In this case, everyone must perform the
task.
To do this, create three sequential activities:
1. Activity A: You need an automated activity to create the ad hoc group. This requires writing some
custom Documentum Foundation Class (DFC) code. Your code should also add a set of users to
the group. Store the name of the group in a process variable.
2. Activity B: This activity takes the group name from the process variable and assigns the tasks. In
this activity you specify whether a single user from a group or all users from the group perform the
task.
34 EMC Documentum xCelerated Composition Platform Version 1.6 Best Practices Guide