The "Create a task" action

Applies to version 2020.1.3; author: Konrad Wojtycza

Introduction

Task creation is one of the basic functionalities enabling the creation of instance workflows in WEBCON BPS. Tasks in the system can be created in the step configuration on a given path or as an action that can be placed e.g. on the entry to the step.

This article describes the “Create a task action” action, as well as the standard method of creating a task on a path.

The workflow

Below there is the fragment of the "Purchase order" workflow:

Fig. 1. The “Purchase order” workflow

The standard task assignment

To create a task, go to the “Task creation” tab in the path configuration. In the “Created task details” section, you can configure the task execution parallelism -> see also Parallel task assignment.

Fig. 2. The “Task creation” tab

In the “Tasks assignment” and “CC tasks assignment” sections, indicate a person/persons to whom the task should be assigned. The predefined task assignment is described in the Predefined task assignment article.

In the “Business rule” option, you can create an SQL query that defines people to whom the task is to be assigned. In the example below, people to whom the task is to be assigned are selected from the item list filled in at the initial step by the registering person. All people are returned from the Approval path list, because the “Return values from all rows” option was selected in the SQL query configuration. The SQL query returns the logins of people indicated on the “Approval path” item list.

Fig. 3. The SQL query used in the “Business rule” option

As you can see, the task was assigned to people indicated on the item list, and the CC task was assigned to the supervisor of the person registering the instance. For more information about presenting the item list on the form see -> Approval process on the item list with row blocking.

Fig. 4. The item list on the form

To complete the task, at least one assigned person must complete it.

Dynamically task assignment

The option of dynamically task assignment allows you to assign tasks to people indicated in the “Person or group” and “Choice field” form fields.

Fig. 5. The task assignment section

The “Create a task” action

The “Create a task” action allows you to assign a task to people indicated in the configuration. If the action is defined on entry to the step, there is no need to configure the task creation configuration.

Fig. 6. The “Create a task” action configuration

In the “Advanced configuration” there are several sections:

• Task type – select whether the task is to be assigned directly or as a task to the message
• Name – enter the name of the task
• Description – enter the description of the task
• Form – indicate the form type on which the task is to be created

Fig. 7. The configuration of the “Create a task” action

In the SQL query configuration, the “Return value from the first row” option was selected and the query will only return login of the first person from the “Approval path” list who did not approve the request.

Fig. 8. The SQL query used in the “Create a task” action

Summary

The functionalities described in this article fully cover the basic business needs for creating and assigning tasks, thanks to the various mechanisms e.g. parallelism of execution. The “Create a task” action allows you to simplifies and optimizes the configuration – instead of configuring multiple paths directing to the same step, we can create and configure one action e.g. on the entry to the step.