Working with steps

In defining a workflow, you drag a step of the appropriate type from a step palette, and position the step wherever you like on a workflow map. See Add a step for additional information. You can reposition one or more steps, and their connected routes by dragging them. You can also change one type of step to another (for example, change an activity step to a submap step) by right-clicking on the step, and selecting Change Step Type from the menu.

In additional to FileNet-provided step palettes, you can also define your own custom palette, My Palette, to include any steps you want either from other palettes or from a workflow map. See Step Palette for additional information.

To edit and work with the steps in the map, go to the steps section of the toolbar and click Steps to choose from the following options:

New

Add a new Activity, Submap, System, or Component step or an annotation.

Cut

You can cut map items (steps, routes, annotations, and associations) in the workflow map.

Copy

You can copy map items (steps, routes, annotations, and associations) in the workflow map.

Paste

You can paste map items (steps, routes, annotations, and associations) in the workflow map.

Delete

Delete the selected map items.

Add to My Palette

Add the selected step to My Palette.

Change Step Type

Change the selected step to a different type: an activity step, a submap step, a system step, or a component step.

Change annotation color

Change the color of the annotation. You can choose from blue, gray, green, pink, or yellow.

The steps section contains a list of the out-of-the-box step palettes that are provided. Your system might have custom palettes supplied with expansion products, such as FileNet® Web Site Manager.

• The BPM palette contains basic steps you can use for most workflows.
  • Activity Step - for general workflow activities that will be processed by a participant or sent to a work queue for processing by one of a pool of participants or by an automated process. See About activity steps.
  • Submap Step - to call another workflow map in the current workflow definition.
  • System Step - to specify one or more built-in system functions that perform logic-control and other functionality in the workflow, such as setting time limits for specific activities in the workflow. See About system functions.

    Note that the system functions accessible in the system step are identical with the system functions on the General System palette, Timer palette, Checkpoint palette, and Web Services palette. The System step allows you to combine multiple system functions into one step.

  • Component Step - to execute operations in an external program as part of the workflow. See About component steps.
• The General System palette contains steps for miscellaneous system functions (Assign, Create, DbExecute, Delay, Log, Return, TerminateBranch, TerminateProcess, WaitForCondition) that can be used at any point in the workflow. See About system functions.
• The Timer palette contains steps for timer system functions (BeginTimer, SuspendTimer, ResumeTimer, EndTimer, EndAllTimers) to specify processing time limits for a series of steps. See About setting a time limit for processing.
• The Checkpoint palette contains steps for checkpoint system functions (BeginCheckpoint, RollbackCheckpoint, EndCheckpoint) to roll back work item data field values to the values held at a previous point in processing and, if necessary, resume work item processing at that previous point. See About checkpoint processing.
• The Web Services palette contains steps for Web Services system functions (Invoke, Receive, Reply) to specify where the workflow will either invoke a service provided by others, or receive and reply to Web Services requests. See Web Service system functions.

There are two types of steps that Process Designer automatically adds to a map when necessary. These steps are not on any step palette.

• Launch step, which is the first step in the workflow. This step is created automatically on the main map and cannot be removed.
• Start step, which is the first step on any submap. Execution of the submap starts at this step. The start step acts as an activity step by default (you can specify a participant, and so on), but you can change it to another type of step if that is appropriate for your workflow design.