1. Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide
  2. Passing a Process Property In and Out of a Workflow Process Step

Passing a Process Property In and Out of a Workflow Process Step

It is recommended that the Type field in the top-level of a hierarchical argument not contain data. If Siebel Workflow passes a hierarchical process property to a Workflow Process step, then it overwrites the Type field in the top-level process property for the duration of the call. It does this so that the process property matches the name of the argument that the configuration for the input argument defines. This configuration applies only for a long-running, interactive, or service Workflow Process.

For example, assume MyTree is a process property and that the data type for this process property is Hierarchy. MyBusSvc is a business service that contains a hierarchical input argument named SomeTree. The following table describes the configuration for this process property.

Input Argument Type Property Name

SomeTree

Process Property

MyTree

Business Object

N/A

The name of the associated business object.

Created By

N/A

The name of the person who creates the process.

Created

N/A

The date that the process is created.

If you use the values that this table describes to define the input argument, then the call to MyBusSvc receives a child in the input process property for the argument where the Process Property Type field is set to SomeTree instead of MyTree. The rest of the data in the child process property remains the same as the contents of the MyTree process property.

Siebel Workflow expects an output argument of a Workflow Process step that passes out a hierarchy as a child of the output property set. To locate the child, Siebel Workflow examines the Type field of the child.

The string in the Type field must match the name of the Output Argument field, as defined in the output argument applet of the step. If Siebel Workflow finds such a child, then it does the following:

  • Copies the data into the destination process property.

  • Discards the Type field on the incoming hierarchy.

  • Replaces the value that the Type field contains with the name of the process property.