Hi there “Process Automation” fans,

Welcome to a new installment of “Process Automation” tips.

Last week we saw an interesting post about Business Calendars, but one question I totally forgot! What does the UI do on out-of-due tasks, lifecycles, and BPMs!? Will we see it somewhere in the UI; In runtime? Or only in the PIM/CIM. I never wondered about this question until I got a restless dream about it…And when I dream about it, it’s time to put this to a test to see what truly happens from a UI standpoint.

Let’s get right into it…

Start your VM again and go into the BPM from last week bpm_bc_demo. It’s just a simple one-activity BPM where we add a business calendar at process level and set the specifics at activity level:

From the BPM itself there is nothing to configure; Only the overall BC the activities the reuse.

What to expect in runtime? Well, how about this:

Looking at the last one where I execute the BPM with <F12> from the designer. The task itself starts 1 min. later and 3 min. after it (as configured), it will be over-due! Can we expect some magic at 3:35 PM!? Well, not in this runtime UI! We see this update (in red) in the good old ‘User inbox’ artifact:

#SUPPORT; Why not showing this also in the runtime inbox?

…

Now a different use-case; Let’s start the BPM from an entity lifecycle. It’s my ‘Case’ entity with a quick lifecycle implementation like this:

So, on entity instance, the lifecycle starts, and on state entry, the BPM starts with my inbox activity (in context of the case). When you update the entity layout with a ‘Tasks’ panel in the layout you will have a view like this in runtime:

Do you see what I see at 4:06 PM? Yes, it gets a red color! So, in context of the entity instance this works much better! 🥳

…

Our next use-case is about the lifecycle itself; watch this setting:

What to expect from this? Sounds to me like the lifecycle should complete within 2 min. or else. Or else what? Well, the runtime UI isn’t complaining about it. The only location I can find something about the lifecycle instance due date is in the CIM:

It would be great to also have a red-something on the lifecycle panel in the layout, so you know it’s out of due…It’s what it is!

Ok, but how to get a list over “over-due” entity lifecycles?…Watch and learn from this service call (incl. due-date conversion!):

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<SOAP:Envelope xmlns:SOAP="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
 <SOAP:Body>
  <GetCaseInstances xmlns="http://schemas.cordys.com/casemanagement/instanceadministration/1.0">
   <Query xmlns="http://schemas.cordys.com/cql/1.0">
    <Select>
     <QueryableObject>CASE_INSTANCE</QueryableObject>
     <Field>CASE_INSTANCE_ID</Field>
     <Field>MODEL_REVISION</Field>
     <Field>STATUS</Field>
     <Field>STARTED_ON</Field>
     <Field>STARTED_BY</Field>
     <Field>LASTMODIFIED_ON</Field>
     <Field>LASTMODIFIED_BY</Field>
     <Field>DUE_ON</Field>
     <Field alias="STRING_1">Identifier:STRING_1</Field>
    </Select>
    <Filters>
     <GT field="DUE_ON">
      <Value>1750688097397</Value> <!--Convert this at https://currentmillis.com-->
     </GT>
    </Filters>
    <Cursor numRows="10" position="0"/>
    <OrderBy>
     <Property direction="desc">STARTED_ON</Property>
    </OrderBy>
   </Query>
  </GetCaseInstances>
 </SOAP:Body>
</SOAP:Envelope>

NICEEEEE! So, it is possible to do the impossible! 😉 Put these details in your monitoring tool and the automation of the admin-task is DONE!

A quick “DONE” on the loose end from last week. I’m glad I did the post as again we exposed some unexpected behavior! Now you also know how to work around it and show the correct information at the correct context. Have a good weekend and continue your growth reading the posts of “Process Automation Tips”…Cheers! 🍺

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