Milestone on a Milestone Template

This page is accessed via Business Process Automation > Agents and Milestones > Milestone Template. Click Add Milestone.

A milestone represents the events that you expect to occur and the actions that you want to execute in response to those events. A milestone:

Enables inter-event dependencies to consider, among others, sequencing and time expiration.
Enables published event occurrence counting and limits.
Enables notification escalation.
Enables specification of mandatory events.
Enables specification of the completion of a chain of events to enable handling of missing mandatory events.
Maintains state.

Adding a Milestone

Enter a Milestone ID.
Enter a Milestone Name for additional identification purposes. The name is copied to any milestone monitor that is created from this template. All Milestone IDs must be unique across all milestone templates and milestone monitors.
Enter a Recorded Event Count Limit. This is the maximum number of events that are received by this milestone that its query condition evaluated true and the event was recorded. If the number of occurrences exceeds this number, the specific business object's Max Occurrence Count Exceeded event is raised. You can assign this event to another milestone agent for further processing.
Enter a Level. Enter a whole number to indicate the order in which the milestone will be displayed on the Milestone Template page and in the Milestone Monitors page. For example, if you want this milestone to appear first in lists in milestone monitors, enter 1. The level number is for display purposes only; it does not affect the actual order in which the milestone occurs. This attribute is useful for making the display order of milestones parallel their actual order of occurrence.
If you select the Time Based Event check box, this attribute will automatically raise an event that will model time-based scenarios. You can model with either a set date or a date relative to an event. When Time Based Event is selected you will be unable to set up another event.

When the Time Based Event check box is selected for a business object, a new grid on the page called Time Details appears. Use Time Details to model your specific scenario.
If you select the Mandatory check box this attribute specifies that the milestone must receive an event at least once during its life. Its life is determined to be over when a final milestone has received an event.

If any event defined for this milestone is not received, the system automatically initiates the business object's Mandatory Missing event that you can assign to another milestone for further processing.
If you select the Last Milestone Event check box, this attribute specifies that when an event defined by this milestone occurs, the milestone monitor is considered to be complete. A Last Milestone Event also triggers the monitoring of Missing Mandatory Milestones.

More than one event can be selected as the Last Milestone Event for a milestone monitor. In that case, if any one of the Last Milestone Events occur, then the milestone will be considered complete.

The Last Milestone Events for Shipments only, if any, for a specific shipment are indicated by the View Events action in the Shipment Manager.
If you select the Reassign Milestone Monitor check box, on any one milestone in your milestone template, allows the system to reassign the milestone monitors. The system reassigns when any of the events specified in the milestone occur. Reassigning is useful when you add a shipment stop after a milestone monitor has been assigned.
If you select the Monitor Event check box the system records the occurrence of any event for the agent assigned to this milestone.
If you select the Perform Action check box the system performs the action(s) of the agent that is assigned to this milestone when that agent's events occur.
Milestone Monitors can be designed to monitor related shipments. Trigger Related Monitoring is available for Shipments and Sell Side Shipments objects only. When this is checked, starting from the first shipment in the graph, all shipments are found and their corresponding monitors are processed. The current milestone is compared with the next milestone even across the Milestone Monitors. This Milestone will not be linked by the dependency service: - Sequence - Event Occur Date. Also, it will have a display level of 99. When one of these related milestones receives an event, related monitoring will raise the following events:
- MONITORED SHIPMENT - MISSING SEQUENCE MILESTONE (raised if a predecessor milestone has not been received, including previous related milestones).
- MONITORED SHIPMENT - OCCUR DATE OUT OF SEQUENCE (raised if a previous milestone's last event's occurrence date is later than the milestone's last event's occurrence date).
- MONITORED SHIPMENT - RELATED PROFILING SUCCESSFUL (raised as a result of related monitoring, the previous 2 conditions above).
Enter an Event. The agent events that you define for all milestones trigger the milestone to occur. Milestone Templates also have specific defined Monitored Events.
Enter Restrictions for the event.
Click Save for each event you define.
Enter a Saved Condition. The saved condition lets you narrow the selection of a business object base on user-defined criteria.
Enter a Threshold ID.
Click Add Action to optionally record agent actions that perform specific tasks when the milestone occurs. An automation agent is automatically created and associated with the milestone when you enter this data. The automation agent ID is the same as the Milestone ID.

Tolerance Rule

You can introduce some tolerance for the arrival and departure times of a milestone by defining a Tolerance Rule ID and assigning it here. For example, you can allow a shipment to arrive an hour earlier than planned and two hours later than planned.
Select the Tolerance Rule Is Active check box to turn on the tolerance rule that you assign.

Time Details

A milestone can be configured to model scenarios that are time-sensitive. You can model time-sensitive scenarios when adding a milestone to a milestone template and you select the Time Based Event check box. You can model with either a set date or a date relative to an event. Depending on how you want to model your scenario, enter data for either set of fields described in the following two sections.

Note: Make sure you select the Time Based Event check box on the Successor Milestone when you have a Time Based dependency service.

You can choose to have a fixed expiration date, or to have a stop-level context that sets expiration timers.

Fixed Expiration Date

The Expiration Date and Time Reset Offset fields allow you to set the expiration time based on a date and time you specify here, instead of Oracle Transportation Management calculating one for you.

When Oracle Transportation Management initially assigns a milestone monitor to a business object, this will subscribe a workflow trigger to listen for the specified expiration date as an event. Note this is for a milestone only. It uses the Expiration date and time as the base to initially calculate its expiration date. For example, if this agent is assigned by an event whose date/time occurred 9/01/02 9:00am, and this milestone's Time_Reset_Offset is 2 hours, then the expiration date is set for 9/01/02 9:00am when assigned to a business object. After that, the time is reset plus 2 hours when the milestone expires.

Stop Level Context Sets Expiration Timers

The Based On and Based On Offset fields allow you to set the expiration timer relative to business object events. For example, you may want to be notified 15 minutes before the planned arrival at each stop the shipment makes. Oracle Transportation Management sets the expiration date and time when the milestone monitor is initially assigned to the business object.

Select what the time details are Based On. Choose what kind of date you want to base your time offset on.
Note: If you select any Based On option other than EXPIRATION DATE when working with a shipment, order base, or order Release Data Type, Replicate For Each Stop or Replicate for Each Line must be marked in its appropriate Business Object Details section. This is so that all milestone monitors assigned by this template will use the specified Based On event specified in determining the expiration date and time.
Enter an Expiration Date. If the expiration date is specified in the future (from the current system date), then the date/time is subscribed upon assignment. If the expiration date is specified in the past, then the date the assignment takes place is the date used and the time is set to the time specified in the expiration date.

If the time is in the past, then the time is set to one hour added to the time of assignment. This ensures that no errors occur during monitoring.
Enter the Based on Offset. This is the time added to or subtracted from the date/time of a Based On value. This value can be positive, negative, or zero.
Enter the Time Reset Offset. The duration to which to offset an expiration date. For example, if this agent receives a time event of interest, after performing its action(s), it resets its expiration date to the expiration date plus the Time Reset Offset value and waits for the specified expiration as an event. If the expiration date is blank, Oracle Transportation Management uses the current date/time as the base to add the Time Reset Offset. This value must be positive. The minimum time Oracle Transportation Management can use is 5 minutes from the current time.
If your time details are based on a saved query, enter a Saved Query. When writing a new saved query for time based events, use a "?". Do not use "$gid". Milestone monitor time based queries do not parse SQL like agents. They only support one variable the object GID and so use the normal SQL binding convention of "?".

Monitor Successor Milestones

Click the Add Milestone Link button to add a milestone link. Milestone links are predecessor/successor relationships between milestones. Milestone links are optional and there can be one or more links between two milestones. The link sequence determines the order in which they are processed and the dependency service describes the nature of the link. If a milestone is deleted, its successor links are also deleted.

Business Object Details

Business object details are available when either a Shipment, Sell Side Shipment, Order Base or Order Release Data Query Types was selected on the Milestone Template page. Use this section to specify how the tolerance criteria, time details, milestone links, and other specified milestone parameters will be replicated when milestone monitors are assigned by this milestone template.

When dealing with Shipment Details, in most cases, select Replicate for Each Stop to use the specified milestone parameters for all stops on the shipments assigned milestone monitors by this template. You need to select this option if you plan to specify from-where clauses to limit the replication.
Replicate for Each Equipment is used only for shipments involving ocean-going vessels. If you select this option, be sure that Replicate for Each Stop is unmarked.
When dealing with either Order Base or Order Release details select Replicate for Each Line of Ship Units to use the specified milestone parameters for all lines in the Order Base or Order Release assigned milestone monitors by this template. If you are working in an Order Base template you will be replicating for each order base line. If you are working in an Order Release template you will be replicating for each order release line. You need to select this option even if you plan to specify from-where clauses to limit the replication.
To limit the replication of milestone parameters to stops and order lines that meet specific criteria, click Add From-Where Clause, and then enter appropriate SQL statements defining the criteria. For example, you could enter SQL statements that limit the replication to the first or last stops in shipments, or to specific equipment types.
Note: Once a SQL statement has been entered, you can view its SQL query by clicking View Query. You can test that query on a business object by selecting a business object ID and then clicking Test Query.
Click Save Milestone.