Auto-Create a BP Record, or Line Item, Based on Conditions or Frequency

A BP might create a new record or line 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 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 BP setup), you can manually invoke the auto-creation; however, only those line items in a status of "pending creation" will be grouped.

Auto-creation Conditions

If you are using a condition-based auto-creation process, ensure that you allow enough time (depending on the number of running background jobs) for routing of the workflow.

When the workflow advances, the system schedules an auto-creation job and executes it with high priority. If the workflow advances again, before the auto-creation job is executed, the system will not schedule a new auto-creation job.

Notes:

The manual auto-creation is transactional. The condition-based auto-creation is not transactional.
If the option Do not evaluate condition based autocreation is selected for the workflow, the BP creator's conditions will not be evaluated irrespective of the conditions added in the auto-creation setup. This helps to reduce processing time when there are no BP creators on that step.

Because of the general way that processes are organized and relate to each other in the system, when you create a job, several factors come to play to determine the job processing time.

Regardless of the job prioritization (high priority or low priority), the system will hold, or delay, processing the succeeding job when a record is being updated concurrently (for example, through web service or manual updates), until the current job, or auto-creation, is complete. In other words, if a record is updated manually and the record auto-creation is in progress, the next request that is submitted by way of “UpdateRecord” will not trigger an auto-creation procedure because the previous job must finish first.

Example:

When a workflow advances from step 2 to step 3, the auto-creation initiates and is in progress. When the workflow advances from step 3 to step 4, if the system detects that the first job was not completed, the system will prevent the second job from completing (auto-creation will not take place for the subsequent job).

Additional Information about Auto-creation Conditions

Only manual auto-creation is form based.
The auto-creation process does not depend on a business process form.
When a line item is auto-created (by using the line item auto-creation logic), the values in the fields on the line item that are based on a data picker in that line item will not be auto-populated.

Bypassing the I Step

During business process setup, 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 the system 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, the system 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 Submit 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/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 attachments to the record or line item will be included when the record is auto-created
Whether records that were linked to the creating record should also be linked to the newly created record, or to the new line item
Whether the I Step should be bypassed when a new record is auto-created
Whether 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, and so on). The Delete Error Lines option lets you delete the faulty BP line items and route the BP record to the next step, if the BP line items are not needed.

Note: After you delete the faulty BP line items, the system 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), the system 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 the system, the location specified in the email notification might be non-existent or incorrect.

Last Published Monday, April 14, 2025