The due date for a process instance is the expected date
and time when all activities related to a process instance are complete.
Similarly, an activity due date is the expected completion time for
an activity. You can use due dates throughout Process Portal to
determine if processes instances and activities are on schedule or
whether they are at risk of not completing on time.
In Process Portal,
process instances are listed by due date and marked as at risk or overdue when the due date expires.
To list only those process instances that are due on a certain date, in a specific time frame, or
that are overdue, you can use process instance due dates as search filters in saved searches.
Administrators and members of the instance owners team can change a process instance due date after
the process instance is created if, for example, they want to bring the instance back on track.
Tasks are listed by due date. Task due dates
are also used to calculate the expected completion time for a process instance. Administrators can
change task due dates in Process Portal.
How due dates are calculated
Business Automation Workflow calculates due dates at
run time. The due date calculation is based on the start date of the process instance or the runtime
task, the values specified in Process Designer for the due-in time,
and the properties of the work schedule. Default values of the work schedule properties are
specified in the 99Local.xml file and are configurable. Administrators can
customize these default values for the properties of the work schedule in the
100Custom.xml configuration file. For information about the
100Custom.xml configuration file, see The 100Custom.xml file and configuration.
- Due-in time
- The expected length of time required for an activity or an entire process instance to complete.
For performance reasons, do not specify a due-in time greater than 800 hours, minutes, or days
because such values result in multiple checks of the time and holiday schedules. Instead, use a
JavaScript expression to directly set the due date, which avoids these checks. You can also use a
JavaScript expression to specify a fixed date. In this case, work schedule settings are ignored.
If the due-in time is specified in days, the default value to the right of the
Days selection is 00:00. This is 0 hours and 0
minutes, which is 12:00 AM. For example, assume that today's date is November 2. If you specify
3 as the number of days and you accept the default value of
00:00, the due-in time is 12:00 AM on November 5, which is the third day
after the process instance or task starts. (Based on the 24-hour clock, if you changed the value
00:00 to 14:15, you would be specifying 14 hours
and 15 minutes, which is 2:15 PM.)
Attention: The due-in time is handled differently
for processes and activities:
- Processes
- The default due-in time for process instances is 8 hours. You can specify a different time in
days, hours, and minutes. For example, a due-in time of 2 days, 4 hours, and 30 minutes means that
after a process instance starts, it is expected to run for this length of time.
- Activities
- The default due-in time for activities is 1 hour. You can specify a different time in days,
hours, or minutes. If the due-in time is in days, you can use the field to the right of the
Days field to specify the start time for the due date calculation. For
example, if you specify 1 day and a time of 11:00, the runtime task is due at 11:00 AM the day after
the task starts.
- Work schedule
- The time schedule, time zone, and holiday schedule properties determine the business hours that
users are available to complete work. You can specify work schedule values for individual processes
and activities or keep the default values. If you use default values for an activity, the values for
the corresponding process settings are used.
- Time schedule
- Normal business hours. For example, if you expect business users to be available Monday through
Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, you can use the predefined 9AM-5PM M-F time schedule.
- Time zone
- The time zone in which process instances or activities run. For example, if business users who
work on tasks are located in California, you can use the US/Pacific time zone. The default time zone
for due date calculations is Central Standard Time (CST). If you use the default time zone, and it
differs from your system time zone, you might get unexpected results when due dates are calculated
or when you use the JavaScript tw.system.calculateBusinessDate() method to
calculate business dates.
- Holiday schedule
- A list of dates that are exceptions to the normal time schedule. If you use a JavaScript
expression to define a holiday schedule, enter either a string (or string-generated JavaScript) or a
JavaScript expression that returns a TWHolidaySchedule variable. If you use a
string, then Business Automation Workflow
looks up the holiday schedule by name according to those rules. If you use a
TWHolidaySchedule variable, the holiday schedule is inserted. To view the
parameters for the TWHolidaySchedule variable, open the variable in the System
Data toolkit.
For an example of how to use JavaScript expressions to dynamically set work schedule
properties, see Creating and managing time and holiday schedules.
Examples
The following tables show examples of due date calculations for both
activities and process instances. In all examples, the system time zone and the time zone in the
work schedule is Central Standard Time (CST).
Example: Definition of a business day
If you specify 9AM-5PM M-F for the time
schedule and 24 hours or 1440 minutes for the due-in time, the activity or process instance is
expected to take 3 business days to complete, because a business day contains only 8 hours of
available work time. However, if you specify a 24x7 time schedule, a business day corresponds to a
24-hour day, and the runtime task or process instance is expected to take a calendar day to
complete.
Table 1. Business day definitions
Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Hours and minutes |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1440 |
Minutes |
Not applicable |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
24 |
Hours |
Not applicable |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:00 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1440 |
Minutes |
Not applicable |
24x7 |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
24 |
Hours |
Not applicable |
24x7 |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:00 |
24x7 |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
Example: Due-in time is outside normal business hours
If the result of adding
the due-in time to the start date is outside normal business hours, the remaining hours and minutes
are added to the beginning of the next business day.
Table 2. Due-in time outside normal
business hours
Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Hours and minutes |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
Friday, 2017-03-03 16:15 |
60 |
Minutes |
Not applicable |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 9:15 |
Friday, 2017-03-03 16:15 |
1 |
Hours |
Not applicable |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 9:15 |
Friday, 2017-03-03 16:15 |
1 |
Days |
16:15 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 16:15 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:00 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
2017-03-02 |
Friday, 2017-03-03 10:00 |
Example: Start date is outside normal business hours
If the start date is not
a business day, the due date calculation starts at the beginning of the next business day.
Table 3. Start date outside normal business hours
Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Hours and minutes |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
Saturday, 2017-03-04 10:00 |
60 |
Minutes |
Not applicable |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
Saturday, 2017-03-04 10:00 |
1 |
Hours |
Not applicable |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
Saturday, 2017-03-04 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:00 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Tuesday, 2017-03-07 09:00 |
Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:00 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
2017-03-01 |
Friday, 2017-03-03 09:00 |
Example: Due-in time includes days, hours, and minutes
If you specify days,
hours, and minutes as the due-in time, the time is handled differently for processes and
activities.
Table 4. Due-in time with days, hours, and minutes
Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Hours and minutes |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
Type |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:30 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Wednesday, 2017-03-08 12:30 |
Process instance |
Sunday, 2017-03-05 10:30 |
1 |
Days |
10:30 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Tuesday, 2017-03-07 09:00 |
Activity |
- For processes, the value of the hours and minutes is added to the elapsed time to give an
expected duration of 1 day, 10 hours, and 30 minutes.
- For activities, the start day is the day the runtime task was created and the hours and minutes
value denotes the start time for the due date calculation. Because the start time is on a Sunday,
the calculation starts at the beginning of the next business day.
Example: Time zone differs from system time zone
You can specify a time zone
in the work schedule that is different from the system time zone. For the due date calculation, the
start date of the process instance or task is converted to the specified time zone. The result of
the calculation is converted back to the system time zone. In the following example, the system time
zone is set to Central European Time (CET) and the time zone used for the due date calculation is
Central Standard Time (CST).
Table 5. Different time zones
Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Hours and minutes |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
Monday, 2017-03-06 12:00 |
1 |
Days |
12:00 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Tuesday, 2017-03-07 16:00 |
- The start date is converted to CST: Monday, 2017-03-06 05:00.
- Because the start date is outside normal business hours, the due date calculation starts at the
beginning of the next business day: Monday, 2017-03-06 09:00.
- One business day is added to the due date calculation for the due-in time: Tuesday, 2017-03-07
09:00.
- The due date result is converted back to CET: Tuesday, 2017-03-07 16:00.