Configuring a Task Assignment with a Decision Table

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About this task

When you determine the assignments for a task with a IBM webMethods Rules Development decision table, you place the logic for determining the assignment outside of the task and the Task Engine. Any changes to the rule logic in the decision table will automatically be propagated to all of the tasks that use the decision table. Otherwise, if you implement assignments within the task, you must update each task assignment individually.

For an example of using a decision table to provide a task assignment, see Example Task Assignment with a Decision Table. For more information about decision tables and their operation, see the IBM webMethods BPM Rules Development Help.

Note: The Rules Explorer displays the rule projects and decision tables you have defined in your local Designer workspace. If you have no rule projects or decision tables defined, the lists will be empty.

To work with decision tables, you must have workspace indexing enabled (Window > Preferences > Software AG > Workspace Index). You must re-start Designer to apply a change to this setting.

To configure a task assignment with a decision table

Procedure

  1. From the Solutions view, open the task with which you want to work.
  2. Click the Assignments tab.
  3. Next to the list of assignments, click Add to add a new assignment and then select the new assignment.
  4. In the Assignee area, next to the Assignee List, click Add and select Business Rule.
  5. In the Business Rule field, click The More button.
  6. In the Project field, select the rules project with which you want to work.
  7. Select Use Decision Table and select a decision table in the drop-down list.
  8. Click Next. Designer populates the list of action input parameters with the data model of the decision table.
  9. Specify values for the action input parameters with which you want to work by selecting an input field and doing one of the following:
    • Type a value to assign to a data model element.
    • Click The More button in the Bindings column for a data model element. In the Expression Binding dialog box, select a value from the task business data or task info to assign to the data model element.
    Note: Not all fields in the task business data and task info represent conditions and results in the rules. You must be familiar with the conditions and results requirements of the decision table to select the correct fields. For an example, see Example Task Assignment with a Decision Table.
  10. Click Next. Designer populates the list of rule output fields with the data model of the decision table.
  11. Specify the rule output fields that you want to use as the rule results.
    1. In the Selection column, click in the table cell for the element with which you want to work.
    2. Click Yes in the drop-down list to specify that the data model element will contribute to the rule results.

    When the rule executes, the selected elements provide the assignment value back to the task.

  12. Click Finish.
    Note: Before you can run the task in your run-time environment, you must export the rule project that contains the selected decision table to the target run-time environment to ensure that the task assignment operates as expected. For more information about exporting rule projects, see the IBM webMethods BPM Rules Development Help.