Human Workflow Concepts Amanjit Johal 1 1 1

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Human Workflow Concepts Architecture Human Tasks Human Task Services Stages Stage Participants Rules AMX Approval Groups Approval Process PIM Use Case Definition Approval 3 3

Architecture 4

Human Tasks (Workflow) Enable human interactions with the business processes. Contain the routing and the assignment information The routing is constructed using stages &participants. Carry deadlines, escalations, notification messages etc required for the timely task completion. Business analyst would be able to modify these policies. The payload to a human task can be simple types, complex types entity attributes (SDOs) Human task instances are accessible to the user via worklist and Human task query services. Have ability to notify the user based on intermediate events like assignment, completion, reassignment etc. 5

Human Task Services The human workflow service handles requests based on task and rules metadata. It consists of the following set of core services: Task service - Responsible for creating and managing tasks in the dehydration store Task query service - Retrieves tasks for the web-based worklist application User metadata service – Responsible for managing metadata specific to individual users and groups. Task metadata service – Responsible for retrieving metadata information related to a task. Identity service - Responsible for authentication and authorization of users and groups. Notification service – Delivers notifications with the specified content to the specified user through any of the communication channels. Assignment manager - responsible for routing, escalation, and reassignment of tasks

Stage It’s a building block of the Human workflow. Every Human task should have at least one stage. Complex approvals can be achieved by defining mutiple parallel and sequential stages. Can be skipped based functional requirements(We use skip participant explained later.) Stage instances are defined on collections , which are references to the task message attributes like payload attributes, entity attributes. PIM uses tow collections, Header and Line which are used to define header Stages(non repeating) and Line Stages (repeating to create parallel instances for each element) respectively 7 7

Stage Participants Participants are assignment blocks of a stage. Participants can be individuals groups or derived using List builders like Approval groups, HCM Hierarchies etc. Participants can be derived: Hard assigning to any of the above types. Based on Oracle Business Rules to evaluate using any of the above list builder. Based on payload values. PIM approvals are Oracle Business rules based and we recommend using approval groups. Allow capability of calculating outcomes based on various voting regimes like single , minimum number, % based etc. Participants can be ignored from the 8 8

Rules Use OBR framework. Rules dictionary contains various functions, constants, variables called fact types. A rule is a combination of conditions and actions. The conditions are defined using facts type, functions The actions are used to return approval lists based on various list builder functions available in the rules dictionary The rules can be used to derive , substitute or modify assignees. The application attributes are exposed via SDOs as fact types. Flex artifacts which are generated on the ADF server in the Fusion MDS need to be synced to the SOA MDS and rules. This is achieved by running a composite program called UpdateSOAMDS which is deployed on the SOA server during provisioning. 9 9

AMX : Approval Management Approval Management Service (AMX) is the successor product to: E-Business Suite Approvals Management Engine (AME) and PeopleSoft Approval Workflow Engine (AWE). AMX enables you to define complex task routing slips for human workflow by taking into account business documents and associated rules to determine the approval hierarchy for a work item. Additionally, AMX lets you define multi-stage approvals with associated list builders based on supervisor or position hierarchies. You define the approval task in the Oracle Jdeveloper’s Human Task Editor, and associate the task with a BPEL process. Attributes derived from ADF view object in transactional applications The ability to retrieve approvers using various list builders like Approval Groups, HR hierarchies etc. The ability to define rules for controlling approval lists and hierarchy configurations

Approval Groups Collection of individuals, other Approval groups. Can be static as well as dynamic. Dynamic groups can be created based on custom logic by implementing a Class with method getMembers(Task task) from interface oracle.bpel.services.workflow.task.IDynamicApprovalGroup. All approval group members are notified at the same time. Managed by the Business Analyst UI using the BPM UI. 11 11

Approval Process A BPEL to orchestrate the approval functionality. The orchestration includes pre approval activities Human task for getting the approval from users post approval activities like object status changes. Human task is an asynchronous, BPEL flow is dehydrated / passivated at this point. Call back from the Human task would activate the process and start the flow from the point of dehydration. Outcome Switch activity for the task response Various outcomes used for various post out come activities. 12

Human Workflow Usage in Fusion PIM Sending notifications of various types i.e FYI for Statuses like Scheduled, Completed Request Comment For Open Statuses and specific comment request action Definition To do notification for NIR Definition status Assignees of Definition Steps are derived based on Item Class Setup Approval notifications for Approval and Interim Approval statuses. Assignees are derived using Approval groups based on Rules(AMX) Demo Link

PIM Use Case: New Item Request Items created via import/services/ADF UI may require Definition/Approval or both. These items are added to an NIR for the definition and Approval NIR life-cycle follows Draft → Open(Request Comment) → Definition(Definition Workflow) → Approval (Approval Workflow)→ Completed (FYI). Open Workflow can be skipped using setup configuration. Definition can be skipped if the intention is only to get an approval. 14 14

PIM Use Case: New Item Request contd.. Each Status is associated to a particular form of Workflow. Which is built using the BPEL orchestration, Human Task, and services. Definition is based on predefined set of steps, their assignees, entities which they are required to define. This metadata is maintained at Item Class. NIR Approval is based approval rules defined in OBR.

Definition Setup NIR required flag allows the user to control the item to always be created via an NIR Process in the master orgs Definition Setup: Steps allow to defined the sequence of definition. Step people are the assignees required to define various item attributions Associated entity types represent the various types of attribution classifications of the item like Oper. attrs, Effs, structure types etc Associated entity allows association of specific attributions of the above type being used. Eg. Operational attributes like Manufacturing , Inventory etc. This setup can be inherited from the parent to child Item classes 16 16

Definition : Item Class Inheritance Flat Panel TVs NIR Setup Step10 : MRP Planners : Opr Attr: Mfg, General Planning Designers: Opr Attrs: Physical Attributes EFF : Physical Specs Step20 Financial Analysers: Opr Attrs : Costing, Purchasing LCDs Step10 : Mfg Planners : Opr Attr: Mfg, General Planning Designers: Opr Attrs: Physical Attributes EFF : Physical Specs, Service LCD Tech Group: EFF Liquid Crystal specs Step20 ….. Step30 ….. 3D LEDs Step10 : , MRP Planners : Opr Attr: Mfg, General Planning, WIP Designers: Opr Attrs: Physical Attributes EFF : Physical Specs LED Tech Group: EFF: LED source specs, 3D Specs. Step25 …… 17 17

Definition : New Item Request Object LCD TVS 3D LED TV NIR Setup NIR Definition Setup Steps Steps… NIR Definition Workflow Metadata New Items LCD-46-BL240 LCD TVS LED-46-SL240 3D LED TVS Step10 : MRP Planners : Opr Attr: Mfg, General Planning (LCD-46-BL240, LED-46-SL240) Designers: Opr Attrs: Physical Attributes (LCD-46-BL240, LED-46-SL240) EFF : Physical Specs (LCD-46-BL240, LED-46-SL240) Tech Group: EFF: Liquid Crystal specs (LCD-46-BL240) EFF: LED source specs, 3D Specs. (, LED-46-SL240) NIR Workflow Open Request Information Definition Request Definition Approval Rules Based Approval Completed FYI Step20 Financial Analysers: Opr Attrs : Costing, Purchasing Step 25… Step 30 Demo Link 18 18

Approval Setup Metadata PIM uses rules to create approval lists. The preferred list builder for PIM is approval groups as they do not depend on any hierarchy rather group of experts on a domain/subject. But there is no restriction on using any of the hierarchies. The following attrs are exposed to SOA for writing rules: Change Header(NIR) Change Lines Item Basic ,Opr attrs, EFFs The attributes are exposed via the SDOs created by the NIR web services. After new effs are generated in the fusion MDS a sycn program is run to sync them to the fusion SOA MDS. 19 19

PIM NIR Approval Workflow Design Human Task: Approval Task Rules(OBR) PIM ADF BC Service Collections Rules Dictionary ChangeObjectApproval(NIR/CO Header Attrs) Header Facts 1 :* Line NewItemLineApproval/ RevisedItemLineApproval 1 :1 Line Parallel Stage 1 Participant LineRuleSet1 Item Object: Primary, Operational Attributes Line Parallel Stage1: Participant LineRuleSet2 Line Serial Stage Participant1 1 :0 to * LineRuleSet3 EFF Attributes NewItemHeaderRuleSet NewItemRequestHeaderStage: Participant1 20 20

Sample Line level rules If NewItemLine.Item.CurrentPhaseCode == “Design” then Approval required from “ItemDesignApprovalGroup” If NewItemLine.Item.itemtype == “Finished Goods” And NewItemLine.Item.CurrentPhaseCode == “Design” then Approval required from “ItemDesignApprovalGroup” Demo Link 21 21

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