1. Using Processes in Oracle Integration Generation 2
  2. Developer Tasks
  3. Develop Structured Processes
  4. Work with Human Tasks
  5. Configuring Human Tasks

Configuring Human Tasks

You can configure the assignment of the human task, the form to use to display its information, the title and summary to identify it, its due date and priority, the number of reminders to send to its assignees, and the action to take when it reaches a certain deadline.

To configure a human task:
  1. In the process editor, click the human task, select the Menu icon, and then select Open Properties.
    The Properties pane opens at the bottom of the window. The General tab is selected by default.
  2. On the Properties pane, you can configure the following:
  3. Save your changes by clicking the Collapse Pane icon in the top-right corner of the pane.

Assign Human Tasks

You can assign the human task to a specific user, to a group of users, to the users in a certain role, or to the same user that already acted on the instance for a certain role. You can also use expressions to calculate the user, group or shared role.

To assign a human task to a specific user:
  1. In the General tab on the implementation pane, click Edit next to the Assignee(s) field.
    The Define Assignees dialog box opens.
  2. From the Build a list of participants using drop-down list, select one of the following:
    • Lane Participants
    • Names and Expressions
  3. If you selected Lane Participants, select one of the following options:
    • Exclude the following participants:

      • Creator: The user who created the process.

      • Previous Participants: Users who have already acted within this task instance.

      • Expression: User from an expression.

        Selecting this option, activates the expression editor icon. After creating an expression, it appears in the text box located next to the check box.

        Note:

        If you exclude a user from a task, the user will be able to view the task but not have the permission to act on it.
    • Any member of current swimlane role: assigns the human task to any participant granted the role required to run the human task.
  4. If you selected Names and Expressions,
    1. Exclude the following participants:

      • Creator: The user who created the process.

      • Previous Participants: Users who have already acted within this task instance.

      • Expression: User from an expression.

        Selecting this option, activates the expression editor icon. After creating an expression, it appears in the text box located next to the check box.

    2. Click Add.
    3. Select one of the available options:

      • Add User

      • Add Group

      • Application Role

      A row with the participant type that you selected appears in the List of Assignees table.
    4. Click the cell for the Data Type column to select a data type.

      To specify the participant using names, select By Name.

      To specify the participant using an expression, select By Expression.

    5. If you selected By Name, click Search to select a participant.
    6. If you selected By Expression, click Expression to enter an expression that determines the user or group to assign the human task to.
  5. Click OK.
    The Define Assignees dialog box closes and the selected participant or expression appears in the Assignee(s) field.
  6. Enter the Percentage Required and the Default Outcome.
    These fields only appear if you select All Assignees in Parallel option from the Who are the approvers? drop-down list. This is the default outcome when the required percentage isn’t reached. For example, the required percentage is 51% and the default outcome is APPROVE. 55% of assignees vote to reject the task. Therefore, the outcome is REJECT.

Use Forms to Display Task Information

You can configure the human task to use a specific form to display the information the user needs to view or complete to perform the task assigned to them. You can use an already existing form, or create a new one.

When you implement a human task with a form, data association is automatically performed when a form is selected:

  • If the data object already exists, then that one is used.

  • If the data object with the same name doesn’t exist, then the first data object of the same type is used.

  • If there’s no data object of the same type, then a new data object is automatically created. New data objects use this naming convention:

    <form-name-starting-in-lower-case>DataObject<n>

    where n is a number added to avoid duplicate names.

  • Name restrictions for data objects and forms are similar, so no special treatment is required.

  • After data association is performed, you’re notified with a message below the form input box.

To associate a form with a human task:
  1. In the process editor, select a human task, click Menu Menu icon and select Open Properties.
  2. In the properties that display, either browse to select a form or create a new one. To create one, click Add Add icon next to the Form field, and select an option for creating a new form.
  3. Enter a form name and click Create.

    If you select the Open Immediately check box, then the form automatically opens in the form editor.

    If you’re configuring an approval task, you can edit the default actions and add new ones. To add actions, enter their name in uppercase and separate them with commas. You can later access the value of the selected action from the human task data association, using the predefined data object outcome.

    If you’re configuring a submit task, the only allowed action is SUBMIT.

Once a form is associated with a human task, you can open the form by selecting the task, clicking Menu Menu icon, and selecting Open Form.

See Work in the Web Forms Editor.

Note:

When you copy and paste a human task anywhere within your BPM process, the associated form is not copied.

Use an External UI to Display Task Information

You can configure a human task to use an external form for displaying the information a user needs to view (or supply) in order to complete the task.

To associate an external UI with a human task:
  1. In the process editor, select a human task, click Menu Menu icon and select Open Properties.
  2. In the Properties pane, click Browse Browse icon and select an existing external UI connector from the resulting dialog. All external UI connectors within the application appear in the dialog.
    1. To add a new external UI connector, click Add Add icon next to the Form field, and select New External UI. See Create an External UI Connection for details.
  3. From the Data Association window, assign necessary values to path parameters, query parameters, and custom payload attributes that you need to pass to the external application.

Define an Approval Pattern

Approval tasks let you define an approval pattern by specifying actions. By default, the actions APPROVE and REJECT are already specified. However, you can also define custom actions, such as HOLD and MOREINFO.

To define an approval pattern:
  1. Go to the Action field on the General tab in the Properties pane.
    The actions APPROVE and REJECT appear by default.
  2. Enter additional custom actions if required.

    Custom actions must be in all uppercase letters. Each action must be separated by a comma.

    Description of actions.png follows
    Description of the illustration actions.png

Configure the Title and Task Summary

You can specify a title to identify the human task, and a summary to describe it. The title and the summary appear in the user’s task list, so that they can easily identify the human task they’re looking for without having to view the details. You can specify the title and the summary using plain text, or generate it using expressions.

To configure the title and task summary:
  1. Select the human task element in your process diagram and open its Properties pane.
  2. Click the General tab.
  3. Select one of these options for the Title and Task Summary fields:

    • Plain Text: Use a text string to enter the title or summary to identify the human task.

    • Expression: Click the Expression Editor to specify an expression that calculates the title or summary of the human task. The Expression Editor dialog box opens. See About Expressions.

    • Reset: Use this option to clear the value entered in the field and revert to defaults.

    Note:

    Your plain text string and your expression are maintained so that you can toggle between the two options without losing any data.

Configure the Due Date and Priority

You can specify a due date and a priority for a human task. After the due date is reached, the human task is marked as overdue.

To configure the due date and priority:
  1. In the General tab in the implementation pane, locate the due date and priority fields.
  2. In the Due Date field enter an interval to specify the amount of time the assignee has to complete the instance after the human task is triggered. Select one of the following options:

    • Manually: Use the format ##M##d##h##m. For example:

      • One hour and thirty minutes: 1h30m

      • One day: 1d

      • Four months, two days, eleven hours and thirty minutes: 4M2d11h30m

    • Expression Editor: Click the Expression Editor to specify an expression to calculate due date of the human task.

      The Expression Editor dialog box opens. See Work with Expressions.

    • Interval: Click Interval to specify the due time using the Select a Time Interval dialog box.

      Description of time-interval.png follows
      Description of the illustration time-interval.png

    • Reset: Click Reset to clear the value entered in the field and revert to defaults.

    Note:

    A task due date is different from a process due date. Setting a due date for a process does not automatically set a due date for the task.
  3. From the Priority drop-down list, select a priority.
    Available options are:
    • High
    • Normal
    • Low
    These options enable you to sort the Workspace task list based on the task priority. Additionally, in the Workspace task list, high priority tasks are marked with a red exclamation mark.

Bypass the Approval Chain

You can bypass the approval chain for a specified action on approval type human tasks. For example, if you set the Approvers to be All Assignees in sequence and the second of four approvers rejects the task, you can use this feature to bypass the remaining two approvers.

To bypass the approval chain:
  1. In the General tab on the properties pane, locate the Skip Approval on check box.
  2. Select the Skip Approval on check box to activate the drop down menu.
  3. Select the action that you want to skip approval on.
    If you add or remove an action in the Actions text field, the drop-down menu for skipping approvals automatically updates to reflect the addition or deletion.

Configure Reminders

You can send reminders to the assignees of a human task. You can specify the number of reminders to send, and the event that triggers the reminder.

To configure reminders:
  1. Click the Reminders tab on the implementation pane.
    The Reminders tab appears.
  2. From the Reminder drop-down list, select a number of times to send reminders to complete the human tasks to its assignees.
    Available options are:
    • No Reminder
    • Remind Once
    • Remind Twice
    • Remind Three Times
  3. If you selected to send multiple reminders, select an interval to wait between reminders.

    You can specify this interval either:

    • Manually: Use the format ##M##d##h##m. For example:

      • One hour and thirty minutes: 1h30m

      • One day: 1d

      • Four months, two days, eleven hours and thirty minutes: 4M2d11h30m

    • Interval: Click Interval to specify the due time using the Select a Time Interval dialog.

      Description of time-interval.png follows
      Description of the illustration time-interval.png

  4. If you selected to send reminders, select an event to trigger the first reminder from the When drop-down list.
    Available options are:
    • Before Expiration: send a reminder before the specified expiration time is reached. After the expiration date is reached the human task doesn’t appear on the task list.
    • After Assignment: send a reminder immediately after assigning the human task to a specific user.
    • Before Due Date: send a reminder before the specified due date for the human task is reached. After the due date the human task is marked as overdue, but you can still access it from the task list.

Configure Task Expiration, Renewal, or Escalation

You can configure a human task to never expire, to expire after a certain time, to renew the expiration time, or to escalate after a certain time passes.

To configure an action to perform on a specific deadline:
  1. Click the Escalation and Expiration tab on the implementation pane.
    The Escalation and Expiration tab appears.
  2. Use the radio buttons to specify if you want the human task to Never expire, Expire, Renew, or Escalate.
    • Never expire: the human task doesn’t expire and if no user completes it, it remains in the users task list for an indeterminate period of time.
    • Expire: the human task expires after the specified time and is no longer accessible from the task list.
    • Renew: when the specified time passes, the expiration date is extended for one more period until it reaches the specified amount of renewals allowed.
    • Escalate: when the specified time passes, the human task is escalated to the specified escalation levels.
  3. If you chose the human task to expire, renew, or escalate, specify the interval to wait before performing this action.

    You can specify the interval to wait using one of the following methods:

    • Manually: Use the format ##M##d##h##m. For example:

      • One hour and thirty minutes: 1h30m

      • One day: 1d

      • Four months, two days, eleven hours and thirty minutes: 4M2d11h30m

    • Expression Editor: Click the Expression Editor to specify an expression to calculate due date of the human task.

      The Expression Editor dialog box opens. See Work with Expressions.

    • Interval: Click Interval to specify the due time using the Select a Time Interval dialog box.

      Description of time-interval.png follows
      Description of the illustration time-interval.png
  4. If you renew the human task, in the Maximum Renewals field, specify the maximum number of times to renew the human task.
  5. If you escalate the human task:
    1. In the Maximum Escalation Levels, specify how high in the management chain you want to escalate the human task.
    2. In the Highest Escalation Title, specify to what job title you want to escalate during repeated escalations. For example, Manager or Director. This is a free-form text field.

Override Documents Folder Access

You can override the default folder access for each specific human task in a business process.

The Documents tab of the Implementation pane lists the folders that are available for the human task and allows the user to override the default settings, as shown.

Description of impl-documents.png follows
Description of the illustration impl-documents.png

To override access to a documents folder for a specific task:
  1. Open the process you want to edit and make sure you’re in Edit mode if you’re editing a shared application.
  2. In the process editor, click the human task, select the Menu icon, and then select Open Properties.
    The Properties pane opens at the bottom of the window.
  3. Click Documents to list the available folders for this task.
  4. Click the Override link that’s located next to the folder you want to change access on.

    The Override Folder Access dialog box opens.

    Description of impl-docs-override.png follows
    Description of the illustration impl-docs-override.png

  5. Select one of the following access types from the drop-down list:
    • Contributor
    • Downloader
    • Viewer
    • None
  6. Click Override to save your changes.
  7. Close the implementation pane with your changes saved by clicking the Collapse Pane icon on the top right corner.

Specify Task Actions Shown to Users

Specify the task actions available to end users for a human task in runtim.

  1. In a structured process, select a human task (approve or submit), and choose Open Properties.
  2. In the implementation pane, click Task Actions under Action.
  3. From the Actions Rules dialog, choose actions to display to users completing the task.
    Note that administrators and process owners see all options, regardless of these settings.
    The actions you deselect from this list will not be displayed to users. Note that administrators and process owners see all options, regardless of these settings.
  4. Click OK and verify the new task actions settings in runtime.

Assign Custom Properties to Structured Process Activities

Interested in assigning values to process activities for use in runtime? Begin by defining properties and assigning them fixed values in design time, then use a process metadata REST API endpoint in runtime to access the assigned values.

For example, for an inspection process you might define three custom properties, to track each phase or activity: Started, Submitted, and Complete. In runtime, you might use these values to sort or order activities in a report, or to drive behavior in some way.
  1. Open a process application. In the process editor, define custom properties for the process. In design time, you define custom properties at the process level.
    Click the Custom Properties Custom Properties icon on the process editor toolbar and enter property name/description pairs. You can assign any name to a property.
  2. Assign property values to selected activities.
    With properties defined for the process, now assign custom values to activities. Values are fixed and cannot be changed dynamically at runtime
    1. In the property pane’s side pane, select Business Properties, then Custom Properties. The properties you defined are displayed.
    2. Enter values for the custom properties. If needed, click Define Custom Properties to add or edit properties.
      You can enter string values only in custom properties. You can leaves values empty.
  3. In runtime, query process definitions using the REST API and access custom values.

    • After activating the process application and assigning members to its swimlane roles to access the process definitions output, view the custom metadata created in a REST call.

    • See the Process Definition ID/process-metadata endpoint in the Oracle Integration REST API. Along with process application metadata and activities, this endpoint provides metadata for each activity, including assigned custom values. If no value was assigned to a custom property in design time, the property is not displayed in the metadata.

    • Note that you must be assigned a swimlane role that provides access to the process application (Process Owner, for example) to see process definition metadata.