Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide > For Developers: Understanding How Workflow Processes Are Designed > Handling Events >

Generating User Events with the User Event Business Service

User events are Workflow-internal events used to resume long-running workflow processes from the Workflow Process Manager. To create a user event, you invoke the Workflow User Event business service, specifying the payload and the correlator.

NOTE:  Long-running workflow processes should use only user events, not run-time events.

The Workflow User Event business service is a standard Siebel business service that can be used everywhere a Siebel business service can be used. You invoke the Workflow User Event business service by configuring a business service step that calls it.

A common case is when a foreground workflow (that is, a 7.0 workflow, an interactive workflow, or a service workflow) can initiate a user event (by using a business service step configured to call the Workflow User Events business service) to communicate to a background workflow (that is, a long-running workflow). User events can be created by all supported Siebel mechanisms to invoke a business service (such as scripting, COM interfaces, and Java interfaces). This is the recommended way to externally communicate with a Siebel workflow.

NOTE:  While any type of workflow process (or business service) can generate user events, only long-running workflow processes should be configured to receive user events.

NOTE:  The following task outlines one of several ways of invoking the User Event business service to generate user events. The User Event business service is a standard Siebel business service and can be invoked by all supported mechanisms, such as scripting, COM interfaces, and Java interfaces.

To invoke the User Event business service for generating a user event

1. Add a business service step to a workflow process.
2. In the WF Steps applet, set the step properties as follows:
   • Business Service Name = Workflow User Event Service
   • Business Service Method = GenerateEvent
3. In the Palette Designer, right-click on the business service step and choose Show Input Arguments.
4. In the Input Arguments applet, right-click and select New Record.
5. In the Input Argument field, choose Payload from the picklist and fill in the fields as appropriate.
6. Repeat Step 4 to create an input argument by choosing Correlator Value from the picklist.
7. Repeat Step 4 to create an input argument by choosing User Event Name from the picklist.