Adding an activity with an existing process

You can create a new activity for a case type and implement the activity with an existing workflow process. The existing process and the activity reside in different projects, and the process has no access to the case properties (although the properties can still be passed as input).

Before you begin

Case content objects are passed by reference from a case to a process. No input mapping is required. The reference is automatically assigned to the matching case object declaration in the process variables. The content objects for the parent case and activity are automatically added to the process and cannot be changed.

You must ensure that the 'Configure Case Integration with IBM® Business Automation Workflow' task was run in the workflow Case Configuration tool.

When you select the process that you want to use to implement the activity, you can choose a specific version of the workflow project or choose the default version. If you select the default version, the process is run from the deployed version that is designated as the default version for the application. For more information, see the topic Designating default snapshots.

By default, the Case Client In-basket widget no longer displays work items that are created from the workflow processes that are defined outside of a case solution project. See In-baskets for more information.

Procedure

To add an activity with an existing workflow process:

  1. In Case Builder, open the solution that contains the case type to which you want to add the activity.
  2. Click the Case Types tab.
  3. Open the case type and then click Activities to open the Activities page.
  4. On the Activities page, click Add Activity > Activity with Existing Process.
    Note:
    • If you want to add the workflow process as a subactivity inside a container activity, open the container activity first. Then, click Add Subactivity > Subactivity with Existing Process
  5. On the General page, specify the name, unique identifier, and description, define how the activity starts, assign the activity to a set, and select a Process Task Details Adapter.

    To define how the activity starts, choose one of the following options:

    • Automatically
    • Manually
    • Discretionally

    If you select the Discretionally option, the activity must be added to a case programmatically or by the case worker in Case Client.

    To select a Process Task Details Adapter, expand Process Task Details Adapter and choose an item from the drop-down list. By default, the Process Task Details Adapter page is already selected when a process activity is opened for a parent case activity. You can create your own Task Details pages from the default Process Task Details Adapter page and add more case widgets to the page (such as the Case Information widget).
    Note: When a new Task Details Adapter page is created for a workflow process activity, it must contain both the Task Toolbar widget and the Website Viewer widget.
  6. On the Preconditions page, define any preconditions that are required before the activity can start.
    An example of a precondition is when a document is filed in the case and the document is then passed to the process as an initiating attachment.
  7. On the Select Process page, select the process to reuse by completing the following steps:
    1. In the Workflow Project name field, select the name of a workflow project in the Business Automation Studio.
      Note: If you select the current workflow project (which has "This project" appended to the name), the processes that are listed in the process table are those that were created by using the Designer rather than by using Case Builder. The local processes, which are those processes that were created by adding an activity with a new process from Case Builder, are not displayed in the process table.
    2. Select the name of a version. Default Version is preselected as the version, but you can select any other version in the workflow project. Then, the process table is populated with the processes that are associated with the version.
      If a process is associated with a toolkit, the toolkit name is displayed in the process table. You can view the entire description for a process by hovering your mouse over the description.
    3. To filter the list of processes in the table, type some text in the Filter processes text area.
    4. To add or edit a process, complete one of the following steps:
      • To add a process, click Open Web Process Designer to open the designer. Add the process and create a version. To view any processes that were added after you opened the Add Activity dialog, click Refresh.
      • To edit a process, click Open Web Process Designer and edit the process.
    5. Select a process in the process table.
  8. On the Map Properties page, map process data fields to case properties:
    1. Select a process data field name from the reused process.
    2. Select a case property name to map to the selected process data field name.
      Properties must match the data type and number of values (single value or multivalue) of the selected data fields. For example, string properties only match string data fields, and single value properties only match single value data fields.
      After you select a data field name, only valid matching properties are displayed in the Property name menu.
    3. To add the selected mapping to the property map, click the plus (+) icon.
      Note: Only base data types defined in the existing process are available for mapping into a case activity property. The following data types are supported on the process side - String, Integer, Decimal, Date and Boolean. Time, Selection and Structure data types are not supported for mapping. For more info, see Variable types.
  9. Optional: In the Design Comments page, add a design comment. For example, the comment might explain the reasons that this activity was created, what the imported process does, or how it works with the solution.
  10. Click Finish to finish creating the new activity.

Results

The process is run when the activity starts, which is based on the specified precondition for the activity. If you edit the activity later, you can change the selected process. However, if you select a different process, you must map properties again.

Note: If the process has a launch UI, it will not be displayed when the activity is started. For this reason, any data that the process needs must be passed as inputs.

What to do next

Now that the new activity is created, you can view and further define the existing process in the designer:
  1. In Case Builder, hover the cursor over the activity with the process, and then click Open the Designer.
  2. Define the process in the designer. See the topic Creating a process.

When you finish defining your process, you can commit, deploy, and test the solution.

You can also test the enhanced capability of the Case Client, which uses role-to-team mapping to detect and display both case activities and process tasks.