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Management of Work Items for Parallel Processing

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Users want the workflow we' re building to be able to remove work item from all in boxes based on if a certain status is chosen.

In parallel processing how would this be accomplished?

Example - work item went to three different departments via parallel processing. Say there are 2 agents in each department.

An agent in department 2 grabs it first, which would remove it from the other agent' s inbox from department 2. If the agent who grabbed it does not approve, but set it to a postpone type status, user wants the workflow to remove it from departments 1 and 3 agents' inboxes as well.

What would be the best solution to do this? Also when the agent who grabbed it eventually approves it, users want workflow to then put item back into the other 2 departments agents' inboxes and continue with the parallel processing, before advancing to next approval step in the workflow .

Any thoughts as to the best way to accomplish this also ?

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Jocelyn_Dart
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Well that's a very interesting scenario Dale!

For starters I'd put the parallel processing on a subflow rather than a single task. In the subflow you could perhaps have a parallel fork or terminating event waiting for a "postpone" event. So all 3 work items are also waiting for the postpone event. You'd want to pass the agent doing the postponing and the work item id used to set postpone as event parameters.

When the event happens you could then perhaps use it to reserve the other work items to a special "dummy" user id, set them into resubmission status, or you may even be able to change the requested start date to make them "disappear" from the inbox.

This way at least you don't have to close the existing work items and create new ones.

You're going to need to prototype and see what works best.

Good luck!

Regards,

Jocelyn

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Jocelyn,

Using the event recommendation worked out great.

Thank you very much.

Dale

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

Former Member
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It looks like there is no easy way to do this. You may not be able to use terminating event, 'Conditions' or 'End Condition' on 'Miscellaneous' tab of Activity, if you want the work item to remain in inbox of agent who grabbed it. Because all of above terminates all workitems and moves to next step in workflow. However, you may be able to use a loop to fulfill your requirement. Create an activity in a loop. Send the workitem to all. Say, an agent in department 2 grabs it first, which would remove it from all other agent's inbox. But the loop will create a new workitem and put it back in all inboxes again. You may add one additional step to check the postpone type status and decide if you want the loop to put workitem in all inboxes or some or only one inbox.

<b><u>Disadvantage:</u></b> It is going to create new workitems everytime some one grabs the existing workitem.

If user logs into Inbox and lets say, the fifth work item is this 'Approval' work item. If he double clicks it and loop creates a new workitem to put it back, now user will see it on top of the list as first work item.

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Pranav,

Thanks for the advice.

Dale