In Process Designer, you can create exposed process values (EPVs) to define a set of
variables you want to expose to specific users. These variables can
be modified by the users while instances of a process are running.
About this task
For example, if you create a process to handle expense
reimbursement, you may want to enable supervisors to change the allowed
amounts for daily expenditures, or the dollar amount that coincides
with various levels of approvers. By creating EPVs, you can provide
this type of flexibility, allowing users to adjust specific variable
values as constants, thereby affecting the flow of all running process
instances, task assignments, and so on.
Procedure
- In Process Designer, open your process application or toolkit.
- Expand Data and select Exposed Process Value. The New Exposed Process Value window opens.
- In the Name field, type a name for
the value and click Finish. The EPV configuration view opens.
- Configure the EPV:
- In the Documentation field, enter
a description of the EPV for the developers.
- To allow users to send feedback about this EPV, type
an email address in the Feedback E-mail Contact field.
The Manage Exposed Process Values page in the Process Admin Console includes a feedback link that
uses this email address.
- In the External Description field,
enter a description of the EPV for the users. The description
that you provide here is displayed in the Manage Exposed Process Values
page in the Process Admin Console.
- Add one or several variables to the EPV by applying the
following steps:
- In the Exposed Process Value Variables section, click Add to add a variable to this
EPV.
For example, if you want to enable users to
adjust the dollar amounts that correspond with various levels of approvers
for an expense reimbursement process, add a variable for each available
level.
- In the Variable Details section,
in the External Name field, type the name of
the variable for the users. This name appears in
the Variable List for this EPV in the Process Admin Console.
- In the Variable Name field, type
the name of the variable for internal processing.
Note: Variable names should start with a lowercase letter, with subsequent
words capitalized like so: myVar. Do not use underscores
or spaces in variable names. Variable names are case sensitive.
- In the External Description field,
type the text to describe this variable to users. This description appears in the Variable List for this EPV in the
Process Admin Console.
- Optional: In the Default Value text box, type a valid default for this variable.
- To enable in-progress tasks to use the updated value
of this variable when users edits its value, select the In-Progress Tasks Use New Values check box.
- To select a variable type, click Select... and select a business object or click New to create a new custom business object (variable type).
- In the Exposing section, click Select to choose the team whose members can manage this
EPV and adjust its variable values.
- Click Save in the main toolbar to
save your changes.
Results
The EPV is created, you can link it to a BPD, service,
or report.
You can reference the name of the EPV and its variables
like so: tw.epv.[epv_name].[epv_variable_name].
You can use the EPV in a decision gateway to control the flow
of a process. You can also reference the EPV from any JavaScript code
in a linked BPD, such as the code within a server script service component.