You can use uDesigner to design a form that automatically creates a new record, line item, or planning item if certain criteria are met. The criteria can be:
- A condition, such as a dollar amount.
- A frequency, such as a daily or weekly time frame.
- Only for a record
- Line items cannot be created with a frequency trigger.
- Both a condition and a frequency.
When the business process, planning item, or line item reaches the condition or frequency trigger(s), the form will automatically create a new record and send it to an Initiation step (I Step). These forms contain a Creator field to activate the auto-creation, either automatically, or manually. If you have Modify Ownership permission on the source record, you can auto-create new records or line items. You can also override conditional auto-creation and immediately invoke the auto-creation manually if necessary.
Note: If the line items have been grouped (as part of the administrator's business process setup), you can manually invoke the auto-creation; however, only those line items in a status of "pending creation" will be grouped.
Bypassing the I Step
During business process setup in Unifier, the administrator can set up the auto-created workflow business process to skip the initiation step and send the record directly into the workflow, where it normally arrives at the first step after the Create step (or the first step in a conditional routing). For a workflow business process, the administrator specifies the schema, the step in the workflow that the record should use as its first step, the workflow duration, and the name of the person or group who will be the owner of the auto-created record. When the record is created, data will roll up to manager sheets at the appropriate status; however, if Unifier encounters errors or invalid data, the record will remain at the Create step, and roll-ups will not occur until the user resolves the errors.
For a non-workflow business process, the administrator can set up an auto-created record to skip the initiation step. In this case, Unifier creates the non-workflow business process record and lists it in users' logs in either:
- Edit mode. When the record is in edit mode, you can see the Finish Editing button.
- Read-only mode. When the record is in read-only mode, you can see the Edit button.
If it appears in edit mode, the user will have to open the record and add or correct information on the form. If it appears in read-only mode, the record is considered complete, and data will roll up to manager sheets.
Note: Business processes are not auto-created in projects or shells that have the view-only or inactive status.
Your administrator sets up the auto-creation by specifying:
- The name of the person or group who will be the owner of the auto-created record.
- (For workflow business processes) The workflow schema to use.
- (For workflow BPs) Which step in the workflow the record should use as its first step
- (For workflow BPs) The workflow duration
- The criteria that will trigger the auto-creation
- Whether or not attachments to the record or line item will be included when the record is auto-created
- Whether or not records that were linked to the creating record should also be linked to the newly created record, or to the new line item
- Whether or not the I Step should be bypassed when Unifier auto-creates a new record
- Whether or not the line items from line item tabs should be grouped
Delete Error Lines
The Delete Error Lines option appears in the Errors and Warnings window when you finish editing (or send) a BP when the BP line items are failing validation errors (such as required field check, etc.). The Delete Error Lines option enables you to delete the faulty BP line items and route the BP record to the next step, if the BP line items are not needed.
Note: Once you delete the faulty BP line items, Unifier removes them permanently without providing an option to access them.
If line item auto-creation fails
If the line-item creation is auto-created with a condition-based query (that is, not manually), Unifier will send an email notification to the business process owner. The email will contain location information so that the recipient can see where the auto-creation originated and where it failed. Following are conditions under which line item creation can fail:
- The To field is empty. This is possible if the assignee becomes inactive after the schedule is created or if a group is empty.
- The CBS code is invalid, which can happen if the CBS code becomes inactive after selecting in the template.
- The rules engine validation fails.
- For payment applications, the associated SOV is locked, either by the payment application record in routing, or by a change commit with a negative line item value. See Payment Application Business Processes for details.
Note: If the destination business process does not exist or has not been imported into Unifier, the location specified in the email notification might be non-existent or incorrect.