Adding and deploying a case management solution

You can use the Case Builder to add a solution that case workers will access from the Case Client. A solution is a set of web pages, content, and process definitions that provide a framework so that you can manage cases.

About this task

A solution can include roles, document classes, properties, in-baskets, and case types. A case type contains business rules, views, and activities that must be completed to close the case.

The wizard guides you through creating a solution and adding case types, roles, and document classes. After these solution artifacts are added, you can easily add activities and steps to complete the activities in the case type section of the user interface.

Each activity can contain a workflow that must be followed to complete the activity. A workflow consists of steps connected by a route, which is defined by connectors. An existing workflow can be reused from a business process management system.

Steps are assigned to roles or workgroups, or are system instantiated, or can be further defined in IBM® FileNet® Process Designer. A step is defined by properties, attachments, workgroups, or data fields.

As you define the case type, you can set document classes as preconditions in activities and assign steps to roles. In addition, you can extend property details for the case type. For example, when you create a case type for credit card disputes, you can add the existing property template for account ID so that the case type includes the account number. In addition, you can set the dispute form as a precondition for an opening a dispute claim activity.

You can also define the name for the personal in-basket and how to display the properties for the work items in the in-basket. You can configure a role to have one of the following types of in-baskets:
  • A role based in-basket, which is optional.
  • A personal in-basket, which can be common, or based on a role.
  • An All assigned work in-basket.
A role in-basket differs from the personal in-basket in that it contains work items that are assigned to a role, but not to a specific person. Work items in a role in-basket can be accepted by any user to work on. The All assigned work in-basket displays a list of all the open work items that are assigned to users, and only users in specific roles can access this in-basket.

You can create business rules to implement business policies and practices, such as determine process routing or update case properties if particular conditions are met. After you create rules, you can use them in a workflow by adding rule steps.

After you create the case types and steps for the solution, decide how you want views for the cases and work items to be shown in Case Client. For the views, you determine which properties are shown and the grouping for the properties.

You can assign case properties to the case summary, case data, and search views that case workers access in the Case Client. For example, you might want case workers to be able to search on the case ID or due date properties.

You can customize the layout of the pages that display in the Case Client application.

Solutions can be edited by more than one user at the same time. Save and close, then commit your changes to make the solution assets available to other users and for deployment.

If Case Builder is integrated with a version control system (VCS), committing your changes copies the changes to the VCS. You then deliver the solution to create in the VCS a baseline or snapshot of the solution with the changes applied.

When you finish designing the solution, you can preview the solution by deploying it, and then test the solution in the development environment. You can make adjustments in Case Builder and deploy the solution in the development environment as much as you need to.

After you are satisfied that the solution is correct, ask the IT administrator to deploy the solution to a production environment.

Important: Each user who might add a solution must use their own user ID. If you edit the same solution in more than one browser session, changes might be lost.

Procedure

To build and deploy a solution:

  1. Add a solution.
  2. Add roles, document classes, and properties to the solution.
  3. Add case types to the solution.
  4. Add properties, views, case folders, business rules, and activites to the case types.
  5. Add steps to the activities.
  6. Design the client application by customizing the page layouts.
  7. Save and close, then commit your changes for the solution.
    If Case Builder is integrated with a VCS, you are prompted to add comments and, possibly, to provide parameter values to be used to check the changes into the VCS.
  8. If Case Builder is integrated with a VCS, deliver the changes for the solution.
  9. Deploy the solution to your development environment and test it in the Case Client.
    You must assign a user to your roles to fully test your solution.
  10. Request that your IT administrator deploy the solution into a production environment with the Case administration client.
    Your IT administrator will configure security for the case types in IBM Administration Console for Content Platform Engine.

Results

After the solution is deployed, users can log in to the solution in Case Client.