Bookshelf v7.5: Working with Wait Steps

Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide for Financial Services > Designing Workflow Processes >

Working with Wait Steps

Wait steps allow you to suspend process execution for a specific period of time or until a specific event occurs. Workflow administrators can specify to pause a process instance in units of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. In addition, administrators can specify a service calendar to account for business hours and days when waiting a specified duration.

The main parts of creating a wait step for a workflow process are:

Define a wait step

Define input arguments for the wait step

The top portion of the view, the Wait applet, is where you can perform various tasks. The lower portion is for Input Arguments.

The tasks you can perform in this view are:

Define a wait step. See Defining a Wait Step.

Delete an existing wait step. See Deleting a Step or Process.

Copy a wait step. See Copying a Process.

Wait Applet Field Descriptions

Table 23 describes the fields where you enter data in the Wait applet.

Table 23. Wait Applet Fields
Field	Description	Possible Value
Name	The name of the wait step.	A descriptive name that is: Consistent with your overall naming strategy Meaningful to the process designer
Type	The type of step.	This value is automatically entered when you create the step in the Process Designer view.
Description	A text narrative describing the purpose of the step.	Free-form text.
Maximum Iterations	The maximum number of times you can execute this step within a process instance.	Note that when the maximum number of iterations is reached, an Object Manager error will be generated and the workflow process will return an In Error status. If you want the process to run to completion, you need to use a Workflow exception mechanism (such as an error process or exception branch) to catch and handle the error. For more information, see Working with Exceptions.
Created By	The name of the person who creates the step.	This value is automatically entered based on the logon name of the user.
Created	The date that the step is created.	This value is automatically entered.
Workflow Process	The name of the process definition.	Read-only.
Business Object	The name of the associated business object.	Read-only.
Service Hours	The name of the schedule used in calculating the wait end time.	Optional. This value is selected from a picklist of service calendars.
Processing Mode	The mode in which the process will be resumed when triggered by runtime events.	Optional Local Synchronous. Executes the process in the application object manager. This is the default. Remote Synchronous. Submits a synchronous request to the Workflow Process Manager server component to execute the process. Remote Asynchronous. Submits an asynchronous request to the Workflow Process Manager server component to execute the process.

Next Step Branches Applet Field Descriptions

Table 24 describes the fields in the Next Step Branches applet.

Table 24. Next Step Branches Applet Fields
Field	Description	Possible Value
Name	The name of the next step branch.	The name of the branch must be unique or you will not be able to import or export the workflow process.
Type	The type of branch.	The value can be one of the following choices: Condition. This value indicates that a condition is defined for the branch. Default. This value indicates that if nothing else is satisfied, this branch will be followed. Additionally, if this value is used, any conditions defined for the branch are ignored. Connector. Use this value whenever there is no condition branching involved. Error Exception. Use this value to define exception handling. This connector type captures system errors, such as an error noting that the Assignment Manager server component is not available. For more information, see Working with Exceptions. User Defined Exception. Use this value to define exception handling. This connector type captures user-defined errors, such as an error noting that an order being submitted is incomplete. For more information, see Working with Exceptions.
Next Step	The name of the step that follows when conditions are met.	Picklist of existing process steps.
Comments	Additional statements relative to the decision branch.	Free-form text.
Event Object Type	The type of the object the event refers to.	Optional Application. Applet. BusComp.
Event	The specific event the object supports.	Required if Event Object Type is specified. The set of events is different for different object types.
Event Object	The name of the object.	Required if Event Object Type is specified. This is the name as defined in Tools. The set of objects is different for different object types.
Sub Event	An options parameter for the event.	Optional For InvokeMethod, the name of the method being invoked. For SetFieldValue, the name of the field being set.
Event Cancel Flag	Abort the runtime event after executing the process.	Optional This flag only applies to events that are cancelable. It functions like CancelOperation in scripting.

Input Arguments Applet Field Descriptions

Table 25 describes the fields in the Input Argument applet.

Table 25. Input Arguments Applet Fields
Field	Description	Possible Value
Input Argument	The name of the input argument.	This pick applet contains the following choices: Sleep Unit (The unit of time to wait.) Sleep Quantity (The numeric value associated with sleep unit.)
Type	The type of argument.	This is a required field. The picklist contains the following choices: Literal Process Property Expression Business Component
Value	A string value.	For Literal and Expression-type input arguments. This could be a picklist depending on the argument selected.
Property Name	The name of the business process property.	For Process Property-type input arguments.
Business Component	The name of a business component within the business object of the business process.	For Business Component-type input arguments.