Need Help Please: How to configure an Activity outcome to kick off another Activity without closing

A
Badge +2

Hello,

 

I have a looming deadline, and this is the last bit that I can't seem to figure out. I have attached a screenshot.

 

I'm using K2 Designer for Visual Studio version 4.6.7 and SmartForms. I have a "Monitor & Close" Activity in my process where a user has the option of 2 Actions.

 

Actions Available:

Complete - this marks the current Activity as complete and completes the whole process

Update Drawings - the SmartForm user needs to be able to specify that another Activity needs to start, while keeping the current "Monitor & Close" Activity open and close it at a later time.

 

How do I accomplish this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Ananda


11523i5C28851F3A0A94AD.png

4 replies

A
Userlevel 1
Badge +8

Hi Ananda

 

There may be a few ways to approach this depending on your requirements. I am assuming here that the Update Drawings Activity contains a client event (i.e. it will generate a work item).

 

My suggestion is as follows.

 

  1. Configure your actions on Monitor and Close activity with 2 outcomes : Complete & Update Drawings (both completing the work item)
  2. Connect your lines from the Monitor and Close activity to the appropriate activities (Update Drawings and End)
  3. On the Update Drawings activity configure the client event to have one outcome: Complete
  4. Connect the line from the Update Drawings activity back to the Monitor and Close activity

What you are doing is creating a loop, so that if the user chooses the Update Drawings action, the workflow will move to the Update Drawings activity, and when this is done back to the Monitor and Close activity (which will generate a new work item).

 

This will only work if your requirement is that the user cannot select the "Complete" action while the Update Drawings activity is still active.

A
Badge +2

Hello and thanks for your answer. I agree that is an option I thought of as well, but I guess I was hoping for something more elegant without changing serial numbers in the Monitor & Close Activity by closing it and instantiating a new one.

 

I have been playing with the Event Actions & Outcomes > Configure Actions wizard and wonder what the radio button for "This action will update the work item." When they click the "Update Drawings" button in the SmartForm, I'm trying to pass "Update Drawings" as an action back to the Monitor & Close Activity and use a line rule to start the Update Drawings Activity when at least 1 Action slot = "Update Drawings". However, I haven't been able to get that to work. What else would an Activity Update Action be used for?

 

Thanks for your response, I hope you know the answer to this as well. (see attached screenshot of what I'm referring to)


12753iB8AB1EFFC2ADC435.png
A
Userlevel 1
Badge +8

Hi Anand

 

The option on the action to only update the work item won't help as the workflow wont move to another activity until it is completed - and this option wont complete the activity. To be honest I'm not sure why you would ever use that option as it doesn't appear to do anything useful (if you just want to update data or fields then you can do that without actioning the task).

 

Unfortunately I don't think there is anyway you can move to another activity but still have the current activity active. Multiple activities can only be active at the same time if your workflow has parallel paths (that is you have an activity - including the start activity - that has 2 or more line rules that can evaluate to true).

A
Badge +2

Thank you for your reply. The reason we would like to keep the Activity active while it kicks off another Activity is because we have a business rule from our business customers. They would like the SerialNo to stay the same for the Coordinator who has to interact the most with the process. Oh well, it was worth a try. I know another way to make them happy, I was just hoping someone might know. :)

 

Thanks again!

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