20.15.1.1 About Task Definitions

Task definitions include task type, parameters, participants, parameters, and actions.

Task Definitions

Task Definitions contain information about tasks including deadlines, expiry settings, and notification settings. Task definitions exist on the application level in the Shared Components section, and are made up of task settings, participants, parameters, and actions:
  • Task Type - Defines whether the task is an approval task or an action task.
  • Settings - The general configuration options for the task, including the default priority for tasks, the task details page URL, and the task deadline settings.
  • Task Definition Participants - Users that have permission to act on individual tasks. Participants can be:
    • Task Initiators, who can start new tasks or provide more information about existing tasks.

      Note:

      If a Task Initiator is absent, you can assign the request for more information to another user.
    • Potential Owners, who can claim unassigned tasks. Tasks can have multiple potential owners. Potential owners can be defined by an authorization scheme.
    • Excluded Owners, who cannot claim, approve, or reject tasks. Excluded owners cannot be defined by an authorization scheme.
    • Actual Owners, who can make changes to their assigned tasks, including requesting more information about the task, approving, rejecting, or completing the task, and updating the parameters of the task.
    • Business Administrators, who can renew expired tasks, reassign tasks to new owners, remove existing potential owners, cancel tasks, or update the task priority. Business administrators can be defined by an authorization schema.
    • Excluded Admins, who cannot perform any task administration activities.

    Note:

    You can use an Authorization Scheme to determine potential owners and business administrators at runtime. To exclude specific individuals from that scheme as potential owners and business administrators, use the Excluded Owner or Excluded Administrator roles.

    You can define a vacation rule procedure that determines how to handle vacation rules for participants.

  • Task Definition Parameters - Attributes for a task that contain information about the task. These parameters can be visible on the task details page, and you can configure whether or not a parameter is editable after the task is initiated.
  • Task Definition Actions - Possible events that can happen when specific criteria are met. Available actions are:
    • Claim
    • Complete
    • Delegate
    • Update Comment
    • Update Priority
    • Update Parameter
    • Release
    • Cancel
    • Create
    • Request Information
    • Submit Information
    • Before Expire
    • Expire

Tip:

When testing Request Information and Submit Information, note that the initiator and the task owner need to be different users.

You can update a Task Definition any time. Updates do not change existing tasks, but are applicable to new tasks.

Using Authorization Schemes

When selecting an identity type for a participant, you choose between a User or an Authorization Scheme. You can use an existing authorization scheme, or create one specific to a particular task definition. This allows the task definition to use an authorization scheme for a department or a team, effectively creating a group.

There may be specific individuals in an authorization scheme that should be excluded from acting as an owner or an administrator for a particular task definition. To exclude a user, use the Excluded Owner or Excluded Admin participant type when configuring the task definition.

Note:

When configuring a participant as an authorization scheme, set the Value Type to Static, and the Value to the Authorization Scheme name.

Vacation Rules

A vacation rule is a PL/SQL procedure that returns additional alternate participants. You can define a vacation rule at the task definition level or the application definition level. If you define a vacation rule at the application level, it applies to all task definitions in the application.

Tip:

A vacation rule defined at the task definition level overrides a vacation rule defined at the application level.
APEX evaluates vacation rules at runtime:
  • On task instance creation: APEX executes the vacation rule to see if alternate participants are returned by the procedure for any participants of the task. If so, APEX adds the alternate participants to the list of existing task participants.
  • On task instance delegation: APEX checks whether a vacation rule exists for the task. If so, APEX delegates the task to the first alternate participant returned by the procedure.

Parent topic: Managing Task Definitions