Enabling work to be postponed and resumed at run time

If you want to enable Process Portal users to postpone and resume work at run time, you can add a postpone event to the client-side human service flow. The postpone event can be used only with client-side human services that implement tasks within a BPD or case type.

About this task

The postpone event halts the execution of the task and keeps the task in a suspended state until it can be resumed later. You can configure navigation options for the postpone event that indicate the intended behavior upon task postponement and determine what the user sees at run time. For example, when work is postponed on a specified task, the user can be returned to a case details user interface or to an IBM Process Portal page if a URL is specified as a JavaScript expression.

When a postpone event is reached, the service state is saved for later retrieval and the task is returned to the inbox where it can be claimed again. Any associated coach is closed. When the task is opened later, the execution of the service flow resumes at the node specified by the postpone event.

To enable users to postpone work on a task, complete the following steps:

Procedure

  1. Open the Process Designer desktop editor.
  2. Open the client-side human service that you want to work with.
  3. In the Diagram view, click the Intermediate event tool Intermediate event tool on the palette and drag the event onto the diagram. The default implementation of the intermediate event is a stay-on-page event.
  4. Select the intermediate event and, in its Implementation tab, under Event Type, select the postpone event Icon for the postpone event.
    Tip: If the postpone option is not available under Event Type, check your exposure setting on the Overview tab. The postpone event is only available when you selected Do Not Expose (Service contained in a BPD or case type). See Exposing client-side human services.
  5. In the diagram, connect the postpone event to the node where you want the task work to be postponed, and add an outgoing connection from the postpone event back to the node where you want work to be resumed later.
    An example of postpone event implementation. The diagram shows a coach connected to a start event and a client-side script. An incoming connection links the postpone event to the script, and an outgoing connection from the postpone event loops the flow back to the coach.
  6. Select a navigation option for the postpone event, which determines what the user will see after the service is postponed. In the Implementation tab of the postpone event, under Event Navigation, select one of the following options:
    Table 1. Navigation options available for postpone events
    Option Description
    Default (behavior provided by the hosting UI) Go to the default page provided by the hosting user interface, such as Process Portal.
    Go to the instance details UI Go to the instance details user interface for the case or process instance within which the client-side human service is running.
    Go to a specified URL Specifies a relative URL to go to when the service is postponed. The URL is relative to the hosting user interface such as Process Portal. Because the URL is specified as a JavaScript expression, surround any literal values with quotation marks.
    Important: Navigation occurs only if the hosting user interface provides navigation support.
  7. Click Save all to save the configuration.
Parent topic: Modeling client-side human services