Working with Policies

The Add Status to Process policy is commonly used to add a status to the current workflow, thus automating itself based on the event trigger. This can include the Process Started event trigger, if the activity is designed to trigger other policy activities and then stop itself.

The Add Status to Process with ID policy is used to add the selected status to any process (including other process instances and activities) based on the ID value. The referenced data object can be updated while the workflow process is active.

The Copy Participants to Process policy is used to copy participant values between processes.

The Copy Data Object policy is used to copy values between data objects.

The Copy Data Object to External Process policy is used to copy data object values between processes.

The Copy Data Object from External Process policy is used to copying a data object from another process (remote or external) into the current process.

The Extract from XML Data Object policy is used to extract the values from an XML type data object and assign it to another data object. XML data objects are commonly used as the output of a Web service invocation. See Invoke Web Service for details.

The specified XPath expression is applied to the XML value stored in the data object, and the result is returned as text. If the result of XPath extraction is an array, then the first member in the array is returned.

In the following example, the XML data object has the value:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<bookstore>
   <book>
      <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
      <author>J K. Rowling</author>
      <year>2005</year>
      <price>29.99</price>
   </book>
</bookstore>

If the policy specifies /bookstore/book/title for the XPath Statement parameter, then the policy stores the value Harry Potter in the target data object.

If the XML schema includes namespace prefix notations, then you should use the following format for the XPath expression:

declare namespace n =
 "http://support.sas.com/xml/namespace/biwebservices/webservicemaker-9.2";
/n:ListWebServicesResponse/n:ListWebServicesResult/n:string

The HTTP Request policy is used to invoke an HTTP method using the information specified in the policy definition.

This URL can be an absolute (or complete) URL that includes the host and port, or it can be a relative URL. If a relative URL is specified, then the policy uses the same host and port that the Workflow Service is configured to use.

However, if the URL is not specified or if it identifies a data object that contains an empty value, then the Directive Name parameter is used to create the appropriate URL. The policy retrieves the named directive from the SAS Directive Service, and uses it to build the URL. If the parameters field is specified, then it is appended to the URL value. The policy execution always uses the trusted user identity. See Policy Usage Examples for a detailed example.

The Increment Data Object policy is used to increment a numeric data object.

The Invoke SAS Code policy is used to execute SAS code stored in a SAS program. The SAS program can return only a single value to the process.

If you pass all the root data objects, then the macro variables are available for use within the SAS code. The macro name generation rules are as follows:

For example, if a root data object is defined with the name category and a value of sales then the following macro variable definition is submitted:

%let _category=sales;

By default, no prefix is added to the name and no default value is specified. To define a default prefix, follow these steps:

For example, if the Workflow.SASCodeOperandPrefix is defined as wf_, then the following macro variable definition is submitted:

%let wf_category=sales;

If underscores exist in the data object name, then the resulting macro variable name retains each underscore even if an underscore is used as the first character. Thus, _quarterly_sales becomes wf__quarterly_sales. Spaces in data object names are replaced by double underscores. Quarterly Sales becomes _quarterly__sales. The total length of the macro variable name, including the prefix, cannot exceed 32 characters. Longer names are truncated to 32 characters.

The SAS code execution always uses the trusted user identity.

The Invoke Web Service policy is used to invoke a Web service over SOAP/HTTP.

The Notify Participant policy is used to send a notification via the SAS Alert Notification Service to a participant as defined by their preferences. The notification can be sent when an activity starts or finishes.

If you expand the activity’s Policies folder in the process tree, then you should see the Workflow:Notify Participant policy definition. The notification is triggered by the Process Started event that is generated when the associated activity starts. When the policy executes, it evaluates the process to see whether the Actual Owner workflow role exists on the process. If the Actual Owner role is found, then the notification is sent to all users associated with that workflow role. If no Actual Owner workflow role is defined, then the policy execution looks for the Potential Owner workflow role. If the Potential Owner role is found, then the notification is sent to all potential owners. In either case, the policy execution obtains the person or group defined for the workflow role, looks up that person or group in SAS metadata, and obtains the relevant notification settings as defined in the metadata.

If you expand the activity’s Policies folder in the process tree, then you should see the Workflow:Notify Owner policy definition. The notification is triggered by the Process Finished event that is generated when the associated activity completes. The notification is sent to the owner of the process—the person in the Task Initiator workflow role. When a process instance starts, SAS Workflow Studio automatically adds the Task Initiator workflow role to the process, identifying that person as the original owner (or task initiator).

In addition to the predefined Notify Participant and Notify Owner policies, a process designer can create the policy directly and configure the policy using the Edit Policy dialog box accordingly.

This policy is used to remove a status from the specified process.

This policy is used to schedule the initiation of a process.

The Schedule Timer Data Object expression identifies when the scheduled process or activity should start. The timer value can be an exact date (Date or String) or a relative expression (String). An exact date must be specified in the following form:

MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM|PM

An example is: 12/31/2010 11:59:00 PM. A relative expression can be used to configure the process to be started at a moment in time, relative to when the policy is triggered. The expression syntax supports seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks, as follows:

This policy is used to send e-mail notifications via the SAS Mail Service using the information provided in the policy definition.

This policy is used to send notifications via the SAS Alert Notification Service based on the information stored in various workflow data objects.

When the policy executes, it retrieves the values from the specified data objects. The User data object value must identify the name of a user defined in the SAS metadata. The policy searches SAS metadata for this user and retrieves the relevant address defined for that user to send the notification.

This policy is used to send notifications via the SAS Alert Notification Service based on the workflow role of a user.

When the policy executes, it retrieves the values from the specified data objects. The Role data object value must map to a valid workflow role: Actual Owner, Potential Owner, or Business Administrator. When the policy executes, it obtains the process’s workflow roles, searches for the role identified by the data object value, and extracts the relevant user for that role. The policy searches SAS metadata for this user and retrieves the relevant address defined for that user to send the notification.

This policy is used to send a workgroup event notification, which triggers the SAS Alert Notification Service to generate end-user notification messages. This policy is used to send notifications to a group or set of recipients and where all recipients are required to be addressed together in a single message. This capability is useful in collaboration scenarios or where the event should be copied to all interested parties. E-mail is the only delivery channel supported using the group notification policy.

All policy parameters except for Expiration Date Data Object are text fields representing a specific value or a dynamic value using data object substitution. For more information, see Data Object Substitution. The Expiration Date Data Object parameter is a label path to a data object and does not support object substitution.

When the Alert Notification Service receives the event, an end-user notification message is generated using the Template Service to specify the message format. Notification variables are name-value pairs that are used as merge variables and are applied to the template. If the Directive parameter is set, then the Directive Service is used to generate a URL based on the directive name and any value specified for the HTTP Parameters values. The HTTP parameters are optional name-value pairs specified on the event.

For policies that have expiration date properties, one of the following expiry options can be specified to determine the action that is taken when the expiration date is reached.

This policy is used to send a directed workgroup notification via the SAS Alert Notification Service. Workflow notifications can be sent to users via e-mail, SMS message or displayed in a portlet.

All policy parameters except for Expiration Date Data Object are text fields representing a specific value or a dynamic value using data object substitution. For more information, see Data Object Substitution. The Expiration Date Data Object parameter is a label path to a data object and does not support object substitution.

When the Alert Notification Service receives the event, end-user notification message is generated using the SAS Template Service to specify the message format. Notification variables are name-value pairs that are used as merge variables and are applied to the template. If the Directive parameter is set, then the Directive Service is used to generate a URL based on the directive name and any value specified in the HTTP Parameters parameter. The HTTP parameters are optional name-value pairs specified on the event.

This policy is used to set a participant, which specifies access control information for the activity.

The Set Multiple Process Participants policy is used to add multiple participants which specify access control information for the activity.

The Set Overdue Status policy is used to add the Overdue status to a process.

The Start Process policy is used to start a subprocess or activity.

The Start Process with Label policy is used to start a new separate process.

When the policy executes, the new, separate process is started. The instance ID of the newly started process instance is stored in the New Process ID data object. In addition, the policy execution looks for the Current Process ID data object in the newly started instance and stores the instance ID of the activity associated with the policy.

The Stop Process policy is used to stop a subprocess or activity.

The Stop Process with ID policy is used to stop a process as defined by the process identifier that is stored in a data object.