Working with Participants

As mentioned previously, a workflow often requires user interaction with the system to complete a task. In addition, automation of task assignment within the workflow to a particular set of users might be desired. These tasks are assigned to the appropriate members within the organization using specific workflow roles. SAS Workflow Studio uses participants to assign the individuals potentially involved with a workflow to the workflow or to specific tasks. The individuals involved must be associated with a platform identity (users, groups, organizations, and privileges). Participants map platform identities to workflow roles such as potential owner, actual owner, business administrator, and so on. Specific role-based permissions have been defined for each of these roles that control participant’s access to workflow tasks.
Workflow Roles
Adding Participants
Editing Participants
Deleting Participants
Assigning Participants
Configuring Participants

Workflow Roles

Participants are the mapping between the authorized platform identities and workflow roles. The following standard workflow roles can be used in either participant or swimlane definitions:
Task Initiator
is the person who starts the task instance. By default, the person who starts the workflow instance is included as the task initiator.
Note: The Task Initiator role is set by SAS Workflow Services, but it is not explicitly used for authorization.
Potential Owner
is a person who can access the task to claim and complete it. A potential owner becomes the actual owner of a task by explicitly claiming it.
Excluded Owner
is someone who cannot become an actual owner and thus cannot claim or perform the task. All excluded owners are implicitly removed from the set of potential owners.
Actual Owner
is the individual who performs the task. The Actual Owner role should be assigned to a single user because a task can have only one owner. A potential owner must claim a task in order to become an actual owner. When the task is claimed, it is locked and cannot be claimed by another potential owner without first being released by the actual owner.
Task Stakeholder
is anyone with an interest in the task (that is, monitoring its progress).
Note: The Task Stakeholder role is not currently used by SAS Workflow Services.
Business Administrator
is someone who can influence the progress of a task by adding comments, delegating or transferring the task, or releasing the task locked by another user.
Notification Recipient
is someone who receives notifications when events happen (for example, missing a deadline or reaching a milestone). A notification does not have to perform any action when notified. The notification is purely informational and is an execution requirement. This is in contrast to an actual owner or potential owner, who must perform a specific action in order to complete an assigned task.
Note: The Notification Recipient role is not currently used by SAS Workflow Services.
By default, specific abilities have been defined for these participant workflow roles, and the roles are used to assign items to the worklist for individual users of the system.

Adding Participants

To define a new participant, follow these steps:
  1. In the workflow tree, right-click the top-level or local Participants folder and then select Add Participant.
    Alternatively, right-click a task in the diagram editor and then select the New Participant menu option.
  2. In the Edit Participant Properties dialog box, enter the desired values.
  3. For Participant's Workflow Role, choose the relevant role from the predefined participant workflow roles.
  4. For Identity, select the User Name, Group Name, Organizational Role Name, or Privilege Name option and enter the desired value.
    If you are logged on to the SAS platform, you can click the ellipsis icon to search for a value for one of the identify fields. Enter a search string in the Search field, and click the search button. SAS Workflow Studio searches not only the display labels used for the items that you are searching for but also the internal names associated with those items. For example, if you search for user names that contain adm, and the internal name of the user name joe contains the string adm, then the search returns the user name joe in addition to any user names that contain adm.
    The Organizational Role Name field is case sensitive. All other fields are not case sensitive.
    To display all of the possible values for a field, enter an asterisk (*) in the Search field.
  5. (Optional) Add localized versions of the name.
    For more information, see Text Localization.
  6. Select OK to save the new participant definition.
Participants can be also assigned using swimlanes. For details, see Assigning Participants.
The workflow tree displays both the identity name and associated participant role. For example, if the user name is admin and the participant's role is Business Administrator, the tree shows admin: Business Administrator.

Editing Participants

To edit an existing participant definition, follow these steps:
  1. In the tree, open the Participants folder and then right-click on the desired participant node.
  2. Select Edit.
  3. Change the desired values in the Edit Participant Properties dialog box.
  4. Select OK to save the changes.

Deleting Participants

To completely remove a participant from the workflow, follow these steps:
  1. Right-click on the target participant in the workflow tree and then select Delete.
    Alternatively, select the participant in the workflow tree and then press the Delete key or CTRL+X.
  2. Select Yes in the confirmation dialog box to permanently remove the selected participant.

Assigning Participants

Participants can be assigned to tasks directly or indirectly via swimlane.
You can make a direct assignment by any of the following methods:
  • Drag the participant from the workflow tree to the relevant task in the diagram editor.
  • Copy (to reuse the global definition) or drag (to demote it to a local definition) the participant element into the participant folder for the target task in the workflow tree.
  • Define a swimlane and associate it with the relevant participant definition. Then assign the task by dragging it onto the swimlane.
To make an indirect assignment, follow these steps:
  1. Define a data object that represents a participant user, group, organizational role, or privilege identity.
  2. Create a swimlane and assign the data object as the value.
    The data object acts as a placeholder (designated by the @ preceding the data object name) for the value, which is derived and assigned at run time.
  3. Drag the task onto the relevant swimlane in the diagram.
Note: Assigned participants are visible only in the project tree and cannot be accessed in the Edit Task dialog box.

Configuring Participants

Run-time workflow participants are defined using the SAS Authorization Service. The following participant identity types are supported:
  • If a user type is specified, then the name must be a SAS platform user.
  • If a group type is specified, then the name must be a SAS platform group.
  • If an organizational role type is specified, then the name must be a SAS platform role.
  • If a privilege type is specified, then the name must be a SAS platform privilege.
Note: You can use the SAS Web Administration Console to assign roles to users and groups and to edit the privileges that are associated with a role. See SAS Intelligence Platform: Middle-Tier Administration Guide for more information.
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Last updated: March 5, 2020