Using Activity Guides

Activity guides are a PeopleTools feature that allow your application developers to define guided procedures for a user or group of users to complete. An activity guide presents the guided process as a series of tasks or steps. It enables users to see exactly where they are in a process as they progress towards completion. Activity guides track the status of your tasks or steps. Activity guides can be useful in a number of procedural scenarios. For example:

  • The on-boarding of a new employee.

  • Benefits enrollment.

  • A life change event, such as a marriage or the birth of a child.

  • Period end closing.

  • System or feature configuration.

There are several mechanisms for users to access and display an activity guide:

  • Classic activity guides require an activity guide pagelet, which is the interface that presents the activity guide and its tasks to a user. The pagelet lists tasks in order and can optionally include a status bar indicating completion progress. Activity guide pagelets must be accessed through a classic WorkCenter.

  • Fluid activity guides can be accessed in a number of ways including:

    • Through a tile that opens the specified activity guide instance.

    • Through a related action link.

    • Through a tile that opens the My Activity Guide Instances page listing all activity guide instances for that template that the user is contributor to.

    • Through a menu item.

    • Through a button or link that programmatically generates the URL for the activity guide.

Activity Guide Process Types

There are seven activity process types. Depending on the process type used by the developer to create the activity guide, the display and use of the activity guide will differ.

Activity Guide Template Type Description

Horizontal optimized guided sequential

  • Presents the numbered steps horizontally.

  • Uses the activity guide subbanner to present navigation buttons.

  • Used for simple sequential procedures.

Vertical optimized guided sequential

  • Presents the numbered steps vertically in the left panel.

  • Uses the activity guide subbanner to present navigation buttons.

  • Used for complex sequential procedures.

Vertical optimized guided non-sequential

  • Presents unnumbered steps vertically in the left panel.

  • Uses the activity guide subbanner to present navigation buttons.

  • Used when users can complete the tasks in which ever order they choose or as events dictate.

Vertical optimized non-guided non-sequential

  • Presents unnumbered tasks vertically in the left panel.

  • Displays the standard fluid banner without navigation buttons.

Vertical non-optimized guided sequential

  • Presents the numbered steps vertically in a drop-down list in the guide mode banner.

  • Uses the activity guide subbanner to present navigation buttons.

Vertical non-optimized guided non-sequential

  • Presents unnumbered steps vertically in a drop-down list in the activity guide subbanner.

  • Uses the activity guide subbanner to present navigation buttons.

Vertical non-optimized non-guided non-sequential

  • Presents unnumbered steps vertically in a drop-down list in the fluid banner.

  • Displays the standard fluid banner without navigation buttons.