About SAS Task Manager

Adding Special Attributes to Workflow Data Objects

Responding to Particular Data Object Sets in a Workflow

Overview

Many organizations need to coordinate people, processes, and technology through defined business workflows. SAS Workflow Studio is a suite of applications and services that work together to meet these needs. It helps organizations model, automate, integrate, and streamline business processes. Several SAS solutions use SAS Workflow Studio to orchestrate user or system activity. SAS Task Manager is one of these applications. SAS Task Manager gives users direct access to a workflow that is initiated from one of the other SAS applications. With SAS Task Manager, users can start, stop, and transition workflows that have been uploaded to the SAS Workflow Studio server environment. SAS Task Manager also enables users to interact with certain elements of active workflows called data objects. These data objects can be used to trigger additional activity that goes beyond standard workflow interaction.

SAS Task Manager was designed for the following users:

SAS Task Manager Users
User	Privileges
Administrators	Administrators can terminate active workflows or transition them to other users in case of errors or deadlocks.
Workflow template designers	Designers can test workflow behavior outside of the parent application that consumes the workflow definition.
Designated Users	Designated users can perform the following tasks: Start a workflow that acts as a scheduling process to initiate programs or web services in a defined way. Provide data input to workflow-backed processes through editable data objects in the workflow itself Initiate or terminate project-based actions. Because users can start and stop workflows, they can control activities that tie into policies supported by the workflow design, including notifications, web service calls, scheduling a task, or invoking a SAS program. Interact with the workflow process through a custom form.

Working with Data Objects

Overview

Two unique features make SAS Task Manager more than just a window to the SAS Workflow Studio environment:

ability to add special attributes to workflow data objects
ability to respond to particular data object sets in a workflow

Adding Special Attributes to Workflow Data Objects

By default, data objects and their values are always shown to users in the Data tab, but they cannot be edited. By adding specific attributes to the data objects, users can hide data objects from view and make the values of certain data objects editable. Only the data objects short text, long text, number, and date are supported for editing. You can use the following attributes:

Data Object Attributes
Attribute	Purpose
HIDE	Adding a HIDE attribute to a data object controls its visibility in SAS Task Manager. Setting it to 0 allows users to see the data object and value. Setting it to 1 hides the data object and value. By default, the data object and its value are displayed.
WRITE	Adding a WRITE attribute to a data object lets users edit the data object value in SAS Task Manager. Setting it to 0 sets the data object value to read-only. Setting it to 1 enables users to edit the value. By default, the data object value is read-only.

Other than the short text, long text, number, and date data objects, all other data object data type values are set to read-only by default, even if you set the WRITE attribute to 1. If you need to edit values other than the supported types, use one of the supported types to capture the information. Then use data object substitution in the workflow design to transform the value to another type.

Note:

Not all data types can be transformed into other data types without loss of information.
Use all uppercase text for the HIDE and WRITE attributes.

Responding to Particular Data Object Sets in a Workflow

SAS Task Manager can respond to a particular set of data objects the workflow. This data object set, if found, instructs SAS Task Manager to present custom edit form capabilities to the user. The workflow might contain steps within which you want to present information to the user for modification, review, or approval. For each task in the workflow, you must add several data objects that indicate which plug-ins to use.

The following table describes the special set of data objects attached to each task in the workflow that present a customer edit form:

Data Objects
Task Data Object	Description
UI_APP	Corresponds to the name of the application that is invoked.
UI_APPMODULE	Shows the location of the .swf file to load.
UI_ENABLED	Notifies SAS Task Manager to present the plug-in (0=No, 1=Yes).
UI_FORMID	Is an optional value to let the plug-in know what form to show to the user.
UI_KEY	Displays a value known by the plug-in and used to fetch the correct data row for display in the plug-in.
UI_SUBJECTAREA	Is an optional value known by the plug-in and typically used to help the plug-in find the correct external data to display.
UI_HOLD	Determines whether the action taken in the plug-in is a final action. The object commits a record to a target data source or is an action that saves the change in a temporary location (0=final save, 1=temporary save).

Other SAS applications or external applications must provide the specialized plug-in that can be invoked through these data objects. For example, SAS MDM provides a plug-in that allows editing of master data in the context of a workflow process.

In addition, special treatment is given to certain workflow data objects if they are found in your workflow templates:

BDN Term URL

If a valid URL that deep-links to a Business Data Network term ID is found in a data object with this name, a Link field appears in the workflow data panel. Its value is a hyperlink labeled Open Term. When you click the link, the referenced term is opened in Business Data Network in a new browser tab.

URL

If a valid URL is found in a data object with this name, a Link field appears in the workflow data panel. Its value is a hyperlink labeled Open in Application. When you click the link, the referenced term is opened in the application that you specify. For example, you can deep-link into other applications like SAS MDM (see the SAS MDM User’s Guide) or SAS Data Remediation (see the SAS Data Remediation User’s Guide).