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Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide > Designing Workflow Processes > Working with Decision Steps >

Defining a Decision Step

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To define a decision step

Make the appropriate process active by selecting it in the All Processes view.
Navigate to the Process Designer view and double-click the Decision Point icon to access the details view.

NOTE:  To add a Decision step to the workspace, drag and drop the Decision Point icon from the palette to the workspace.

Enter a step name.
Enter a description of the purpose for the decision step.

NOTE:  Go to the next procedure, Defining Decision Branches, to create the branches for the decision step.

Defining Decision Branches

If you connected the decision steps to the next steps in the process with connector arrows, as described in Designing a Workflow Process, branches are automatically created and appear in the Next Step applet. If this is the case, modify the branch fields as necessary and then go to Defining Conditions and Values for the procedure on defining conditions and values for each branch.

To define a branch

With the appropriate Decision step name displayed in the Decision applet of the Decision view and the Next Step applet active, choose Edit > Add New Record.
Enter a branch name.

NOTE:  The name of the branch must be unique or you will not be able to import or export the workflow process.

Choose a branch type. Type values are described in Table 11.

CAUTION:  You should always define a Default branch step in case some work items do not meet any of the conditions you define.

Enter the name of the next step.
Enter comments, if applicable.
Verify on the Process Designer view that the decision point branch is connected with a connector arrow to the appropriate next step.

The handles of the connector arrow will be red if they are correctly attached to the steps.

NOTE:  Decision points can have multiple decision point branches. Repeat Step 1 through Step 6 for additional branches.

Go to the next procedure, Defining Conditions and Values, to define the conditions that apply to each branch.

Defining Conditions and Values

Conditions and values affect the flow of your process execution. Different actions may occur depending on which path is followed. For example, you can define a condition based on the value of a priority field, so that if the priority is equal to "high," the process execution follows a branch leading to an action that sends an email to a vice president. However, if the priority is equal to "medium," the email is sent to an engineer.

NOTE:  A decision step evaluates a record's business component value at the time the workflow process is executed. If the workflow process is triggered by a workflow policy and multiple violations of a policy condition occur within the Workflow Monitor Agent's action interval, then at the time the workflow process is executed, the decision step determines which branch to take based on the current value of the business component field. If the decision branch criterion is moved from the workflow process level to the workflow policy level, then the policy generates unique events within the defined action interval. In this way, the workflow process is triggered for all violations.

To define conditions and values

Select the appropriate branch in the Branches applet on the Decision view.
Click the Conditions applet to make it active.
Select a Compare To value from the picklist. The available choices are:
Process Property. Select this when you want to compare a value in a process property in the process instance with a specified value.
Expression. Select this when you want to use an expression to evaluate a specific value.
Business Component. Select this when you want to use the value in a business component field for the condition comparison.
Applet. Select this when you want to use the value in an applet field for the condition comparison.
Select the operation to use for evaluating the values. The available choices are:
This Must Match. The current value must match exactly, including case.
One Must Match. One or more values must match exactly, including case.
All Must Match. All of the values must match exactly, including case.

NOTE:  The All Must Match operation is only applicable in a scenario where a workflow branch must make a decision based on a field of a child business component. The name of the child business component is specified by the Business Component Name field of the branch. The child business component is different from the primary business component of the workflow process. It is possible for the child business component to contain multiple records. If the workflow branch uses the All Must Match comparison criterion, the branch will pass only when the field values of all child business component records match branch criteria value(s) of the branch.

None Can Match. None of the values can match exactly, including case.
This Must Match (ignore case). The current value must match without regard to case.
One Must Match (ignore case). One or more values must match without regard to case.
All Must Match (ignore case). All of the values must match without regard to case.
None Can Match (ignore case). None of the values can match without regard to case.
Greater Than. Value must be greater than the comparison value.
Less Than. Value must be less than the comparison value.
Between. Value must be between a range of values.
Not Between. Value cannot be between a range of values.
Is Null. Value must be null.
Is Not Null. Value cannot be null.
If you are using a process property value, select the name of the property from the picklist.
If you are using a business component field or an expression, select the name of the component and the name of the field from the Business Component Name and the Business Component Field picklists. See Table 8.
Enter an applet name and applet field, if applicable.
The applet works similar to a business component, except that it has translatable names and picklists. Only list applets can be used in conditions.
Enter any appropriate values and expressions in the Values applet.

NOTE:  Expressions should be entered using the same format as found in Siebel Tools. For more information, see Siebel Tools Reference.

The following example shows an expression comparing a business component field with today's date using the AND operator, which allows you to compare multiple conditions.

([Close Date] <= Today()) AND ([Revenue] > 1000)

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