Activities

Introduction to activities

Activities represent actions which need to be performed during the process. There are three types of activities.

• Manual activities can be executed by a user at a specific point of the process. They are displayed in the list of workflow activities.

• Scope activities can be executed by a user whenever the case is in the respective scope, see Scopes. They are displayed in the list of workflow activities.

• Automatic activities are executed automatically at a specific point of the process.

The execution of activities is bound to the Execute activities permission, see Roles.

Process logic of activities

Activity executions are handled according to the following principles:

• After passing through an activity, the case always waits behind this activity. It does not leave the scope where this activity is located.

• The process engine checks the subsequent activities. There are two possible situations:

  • The activity is connected to one automatic activity:
    → The case passes through this activity right away.

  • The activity is connected to one or more manual activities:
    → The case waits behind the activity which was just executed. The user has to execute one of the manual activities to move the case forward in the process. If the activities have a visibility script, it is executed to decide whether the activity is displayed or not.

  It is not possible to design a workflow with an activity which is connected to more than one automatic activity or to both automatic and manual activities.

• Scope activities are manual activities which can be executed at any time while the case is in the respective scope. Scope activities do not have any incoming connections. Depending on their outgoing connections, they can either model interrupts or exceptions:

  • The scope activity does not have any outgoing connections:
    → The scope activity is an interrupt, i.e. after executing the activity, the case returns to the position where it was located previously.

  • The scope activity has outgoing connections:
    → The scope activity is an exception, i.e. after executing the activity, the case follows a new path initiated by the scope activity.

Available settings for activities

The following settings are available for activities:

• Path:
  Read-only. The path to the activity within the workflow. Used to reference the activity in scripts.

• Technical name:
  Mandatory. The technical name of the activity.

• Label:
  Optional. The localized name of the activity which is displayed in the list of workflow activities (manual activities and scope activities only) and the case history in the Web Client.

• Description:
  Optional. The localized description of the activity. For manual and scope activities, this description is displayed when hovering the activity in the list of workflow activities in the Web Client and CM/Track.

• Type:
  Mandatory. Determines the type of activity.

  • Automatic: The activity is executed immediately after the previous activity.

  • Manual: The activity is executed by a user. It is displayed in the list of workflow activities in the Web Client and a user needs to execute it. The activity is only available in a strictly defined position of the case within the process.

  • Scope: The activity is executed by a user. It is displayed in the list of workflow activities in the Web Client and a user needs to execute it. It is available as long as the case is located within the scope where the activity is placed or in one of its sub-scopes.

• Script:
  Optional. Script which is executed when the case passes the activity.

• Visibility script:
  Optional. Only available for manual activities. Script which is executed to determine if the activity is displayed in the Web Client or CM/Track. The script has to return true or false. It is executed after the previous activity has been performed. If the script returns true, the activity is displayed, if it returns false, the activity is not displayed.

• Overlay:
  Optional. Select the overlay which should be displayed on the case icon after the case passed the activity. You can choose one of the default overlays or upload you own overlay (PNG file, 16 x 16 px).

• Overlay range:
  Optional. Only displayed if an overlay has been selected. Determines how long the overlay is displayed on the case icon:

  • Activity: The overlay is displayed while the case waits behind the activity. As soon as the next activity is executed, the overlay is removed from the case icon.

  • Scope: The overlay is removed when the case leaves the scope.

  • Process: The overlay remains at the case icon for the rest of the process.

  • Next overlay: The overlay remains at the case icon until a new overlay appears. In that case, the old overlay is removed and the new overlay is shown.

• Expose to users:
  Optional. Only available for scope activities. If selected, the activity is displayed as a workflow activity in the Web Client.

• Expose to customers:
  Optional. Only available for manual activities and scope activities. If selected, the activity is displayed as a workflow activity in CM/Track. Visibility scripts and activity forms also work in CM/Track.

• Sort index:
  Mandatory. Only available for manual activities. Defines the position of the activity in the list of workflow activities in the Web Client and CM/Track. Only relevant for manual activities and scope activities.

• History visibility:

  Mandatory. Defines on which detail levels the execution of the element is shown in the case history in the Web Client.

  The possible values are:

  • Default
    The display of the execution depends on the global setting (see Case history) for the respective activity type:

    • Manual activity or activity with overlay executed
    • Activity executed after escalation
    • Automatic activity executed

    This is the default value.

  • Only high detail level
    The execution is displayed if High is selected.
  • Medium and high detail level
    The execution is displayed if Medium or High is selected.
  • All detail levels
    The execution is always displayed.
  • Hide on all detail levels
    The execution of the activity is never displayed.

• Skip update event:
  Mandatory. Defines whether the case is updated after executing the workflow element. By default, an update event is triggered to update the case. If there is a chain of elements, you should avoid triggering an update operation after every single element. Select this checkbox for all elements except for the last one to update the case only once, after the last workflow element.