Working with Participants :: SAS(R) Workflow Studio 1.2: User's Guide

Overview

As mentioned previously, a workflow often requires user interaction with the system to complete a task. In addition, automation of task assignment within the process to a particular set of users might be desired. These tasks are assigned to the appropriate members within the organization using specific roles. SAS Workflow Studio uses participants to assign the persons (users, groups and organizations) potentially involved with the workflow, or a specific activity, as role-based permissions for accessing workflow data. 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.

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 or potential 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. A task can have only one actual owner. When the task is claimed, the actual owner can complete the task, release the claim, or transfer or delegate the task.

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 workflows.

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

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.

By default, these workflow roles have predefined permissions and are used to assign items to the worklist for individual users of the system.

Adding Participants

To define a new participant, follow these steps:

In the process tree, right-click the top-level or local Participants folder and then select Add Participant.

Alternatively, right-click an activity in the diagram editor and then select the New Participant menu option.
In the Edit Participant Properties dialog box, enter the desired values.
For Participant's Role in Process, choose the relevant role from the predefined workflow roles.
For Identity, select the User Name, Group Name, or Organizational Role Name option and enter the desired value.
(Optional) Add localized versions of the name.

For more information, see Text Localization.
Select OK to save the new participant definition.

Participants can be also assigned using swimlanes. For details, see Assigning Participants.

The process tree displays both the identity name and associated workflow role. For example, if the user name is admin and the participant's role is Task Initiator, the tree shows

admin: Task
                     Initiator

.

Editing Participants

To edit an existing participant definition, follow these steps:

In the process tree, open the Participants folder and then right-click on the desired participant node.
Select Edit.
Change the desired values in the Edit Participant Properties dialog box.
Select OK to save the changes.

Deleting Participants

To completely remove a participant from the workflow, follow these steps:

Right-click on the target participant in the process tree and then select Delete.

Alternatively, select the participant in the process tree and then press the Delete key or CTRL+X.
Select Yes in the confirmation dialog box to permanently remove the selected participant.

Assigning Participants

Participants can be assigned to activities directly or indirectly via swimlane.

You can make a direct assignment by any of the following methods:

Drag the participant from the process tree to the relevant activity 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 activity in the process tree.
Define a swimlane and associate it with the relevant participant definition. Then assign the activity by dragging it onto the swimlane.

To make an indirect assignment, follow these steps:

Define a data object that represents a participant user, group, or organizational role identity.
Create a swimlane and assign the value of the data object as the value.

The data object acts as a placeholder (designated by the @ preceding the data object name) for the value until assigned at run time.
Drag the activity onto the relevant swimlane in the diagram.

Note: Assigned participants are visible only in the project tree and cannot be accessed in the Edit Activity dialog box.

Configuring Participants

Run-time workflow participants are defined using the SAS Authentication Service. The following participant identity types are associated with the SAS Metadata Server definitions:

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.