Question from Maggie at Eastman
I need some clarification on the escalation rule and how it actually works. We have already determined that it has nothing to do with duration. If you put in an escalation to start after 7 days and set up a repeat of 5 times, does that mean it repeats 5 times every 7 days or what? Also in looking at your help in K2 Studio the following note appears on escalation rule... Note: the Escalation Action will ALWAYS execute not matter what you specify in the Escalation Rule (copied straight from your help files). What does this mean? Also, if I set up more than one escalation rule on an activity, does the escalation rules happen concurrently or only after the first one finishes?
How Do Escalations work
+5+5Answer from Support
If you configure an escalation to start after 7 days and repeat 5 times, the escalation will fire 7 days after the ActivityInstance is started and continue to fire every 7 days thereafter for the specified number of times. In addition, although the "to be repeated for" drop down list in the GUI only goes to 11, you can enter a value up to 9999 (or modify the code) and the escalation will fire the specified number of times.
The elapsed time calculations for escalations are always based on the start time of the ActivityInstance, so an escalation is not dependent upon the time at which other escalations defined for the activity are fired.
You can set an Escalation to fire as follows:
-On a specific date.
-Any number of days, minutes and seconds after a specific date.
-Any number of days, minutes and seconds after the ActivityInstance starts.
That said, one way you can accomplish what you need to do is to have one Escalation that fires x number of days after the activity is started (for example, Expected Duration + x days). This Escalation would not repeat. You could then have a second escalation that fires multiple times, x number of days after a specific date (for example, x days after the first escalation is raised). This would involve keeping track of the date when the first Escalation is fired, so you could calculate and pass the appropriate DateTime to second Escalation.
Escalations do not take into account the Expected Duration setting for the process.
'Expected Duration' is for reporting purposes only to show when things are outside of expectations.
In regards to the following in the help file: "Note: the Escalation Action will ALWAYS execute not matter what you specify in the Escalation Rule". It is not clear what this is trying to convey and I have reported it to our Labs team so it can be addressed in a future release of the help.
If you configure an escalation to start after 7 days and repeat 5 times, the escalation will fire 7 days after the ActivityInstance is started and continue to fire every 7 days thereafter for the specified number of times. In addition, although the "to be repeated for" drop down list in the GUI only goes to 11, you can enter a value up to 9999 (or modify the code) and the escalation will fire the specified number of times.
The elapsed time calculations for escalations are always based on the start time of the ActivityInstance, so an escalation is not dependent upon the time at which other escalations defined for the activity are fired.
You can set an Escalation to fire as follows:
-On a specific date.
-Any number of days, minutes and seconds after a specific date.
-Any number of days, minutes and seconds after the ActivityInstance starts.
That said, one way you can accomplish what you need to do is to have one Escalation that fires x number of days after the activity is started (for example, Expected Duration + x days). This Escalation would not repeat. You could then have a second escalation that fires multiple times, x number of days after a specific date (for example, x days after the first escalation is raised). This would involve keeping track of the date when the first Escalation is fired, so you could calculate and pass the appropriate DateTime to second Escalation.
Escalations do not take into account the Expected Duration setting for the process.
'Expected Duration' is for reporting purposes only to show when things are outside of expectations.
In regards to the following in the help file: "Note: the Escalation Action will ALWAYS execute not matter what you specify in the Escalation Rule". It is not clear what this is trying to convey and I have reported it to our Labs team so it can be addressed in a future release of the help.
+5An easy way to test this is as follows:
Create a process
Add 2 Activities
1st Activity add Server event
Edit Code change K2.Synchronous = false;
(this stops it from completing and makes it wait for the escalation)
Connect all of the activities with Lines
Set the line rule to "true=false" (this stops activity from moving forward)
Add 2 escalations to the first Activity
1st escalation Email, after 2 seconds, repeat 3 times (send email to someone)
2nd escalation GoToActivity (Activity 2), after 10 sec
Result
The email is sent out 4 times at 2 second intervals
The process moved to default activity 2 after 10 seconds
So, one escalation has nothing to do with the other
Create a process
Add 2 Activities
1st Activity add Server event
Edit Code change K2.Synchronous = false;
(this stops it from completing and makes it wait for the escalation)
Connect all of the activities with Lines
Set the line rule to "true=false" (this stops activity from moving forward)
Add 2 escalations to the first Activity
1st escalation Email, after 2 seconds, repeat 3 times (send email to someone)
2nd escalation GoToActivity (Activity 2), after 10 sec
Result
The email is sent out 4 times at 2 second intervals
The process moved to default activity 2 after 10 seconds
So, one escalation has nothing to do with the other
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.