Configuring Human Tasks

You can configure the assignment of the human task, the form to use to display its
information, the title and summary to identify it, its due date and priority, the number of
reminders to send to its assignees, and the action to take when it reaches a certain deadline.

To configure a human task:

1. In the process editor, click the human task, select the Menu icon, and then
select Open Properties.
The Properties pane opens at the bottom of the window. The General tab is selected
by default.
2. On the Properties pane, you can configure the following:
Tab More Information

General Work with Draft Processes

Assign Human Tasks
Use Forms to Display Task Information
Use an External UI to Display Task
Information
Define an Approval Pattern
Specify Task Actions Shown to Users
Configure the Title and Task Summary
Configure the Due Date and Priority
Bypass the Approval Chain

Reminders Configure Reminders

Escalation and Configure Task Expiration, Renewal, or

Expiration Escalation

Notification Customize Notification Emails for

Human Tasks

Documents Override Documents Folder Access

3. Save your changes by clicking the Collapse Pane icon in the top-right corner of the
pane.

Assign Human Tasks

You can assign the human task to a specific user, to a group of users, to the users in a certain
role, or to the same user that already acted on the instance for a certain role. You can also use
expressions to calculate the user, group or shared role.

To assign a human task to a specific user:

1. In the General tab on the implementation pane, click Edit next to the Assignee(s)
field.
The Define Assignees dialog box opens.
2. From the Build a list of participants using drop-down list, select one of the
following:
o Lane Participants
o Names and Expressions
3. If you selected Lane Participants, select one of the following options:
o Exclude the following participants:
 Creator: The user who created the process.
 Previous Participants: Users who have already acted within this task
instance.
 Expression: User from an expression.
Selecting this option, activates the expression editor icon. After
creating an expression, it appears in the text box located next to the
check box.
Note:
If you exclude a user from a task, the user will be able to view the task
but not have the permission to act on it.
o Any member of current swimlane role: assigns the human task to any
participant granted the role required to run the human task.
4. If you selected Names and Expressions,
a. Exclude the following participants:
 Creator: The user who created the process.
 Previous Participants: Users who have already acted within this task
instance.
 Expression: User from an expression.
Selecting this option, activates the expression editor icon. After
creating an expression, it appears in the text box located next to the
check box.
b. Click Add.
c. Select one of the available options:
 Add User
 Add Group
 Application Role
A row with the participant type that you selected appears in the List of
Assignees table.
d. Click the cell for the Data Type column to select a data type.
To specify the participant using names, select By Name.
To specify the participant using an expression, select By Expression.
e. If you selected By Name, click Search to select a participant.
f. If you selected By Expression, click Expression to enter an expression that
determines the user or group to assign the human task to.
5. Click OK.
The Define Assignees dialog box closes and the selected participant or expression
appears in the Assignee(s) field.
6. Enter the Percentage Required and the Default Outcome.
 These fields only appear if you select All Assignees in Parallel option from the Who
are the approvers? drop-down list. This is the default outcome when the required
percentage isn’t reached. For example, the required percentage is 51% and the default
outcome is APPROVE. 55% of assignees vote to reject the task. Therefore, the
outcome is REJECT.

Use Forms to Display Task Information

You can configure the human task to use a specific form to display the information the user
needs to view or complete to perform the task assigned to them. You can use an already
existing form, or create a new one.

When you implement a human task with a form, data association is automatically performed
when a form is selected:

 If the data object already exists, then that one is used.

 If the data object with the same name doesn’t exist, then the first data object of the
same type is used.
 If there’s no data object of the same type, then a new data object is automatically
created. New data objects use this naming convention:
<form-name-starting-in-lower-case>DataObject<n>
where n is a number added to avoid duplicate names.
 Name restrictions for data objects and forms are similar, so no special treatment is
required.
 After data association is performed, you’re notified with a message below the form
input box.
To associate a form with a human task:

1. In the process editor, select a human task, click Menu and select Open
Properties.
2. In the properties that display, either browse to select a form or create a new one. To
create one, click Add next to the Form field, and select an option for creating a
new form.

Description of the illustration form-add-menu.png

3. Enter a form name and click Create.
If you select the Open Immediately check box, then the form automatically opens in
the form editor.
If you’re configuring an approval task, you can edit the default actions and add new
ones. To add actions, enter their name in uppercase and separate them with commas.
You can later access the value of the selected action from the human task data
association, using the predefined data object outcome.

If you’re configuring a submit task, the only allowed action is SUBMIT.

Once a form is associated with a human task, you can open the form by selecting the task,
clicking Menu , and selecting Open Form.
See Work in the Web Forms Editor.
Note:
When you copy and paste a human task anywhere within your BPM process, the associated
form is not copied.

Use an External UI to Display Task Information

You can configure a human task to use an external form for displaying the information a user
needs to view (or supply) in order to complete the task.

To associate an external UI with a human task:

1. In the process editor, select a human task, click Menu and select Open
Properties.
2. In the Properties pane, click Browse and select an existing external UI connector
from the resulting dialog. All external UI connectors within the application appear in
the dialog.
a. To add a new external UI connector, click Add next to the Form field, and
select New External UI. See Create an External UI Connection for details.
3. From the Data Association window, assign necessary values to path parameters, query
parameters, and custom payload attributes that you need to pass to the external
application.

Define an Approval Pattern

Approval tasks let you define an approval pattern by specifying actions. By default, the
actions APPROVE and REJECT are already specified. However, you can also define custom
actions, such as HOLD and MOREINFO.

To define an approval pattern:

1. Go to the Action field on the General tab in the Properties pane.
The actions APPROVE and REJECT appear by default.
2. Enter additional custom actions if required.

Custom actions must be in all uppercase letters. Each action must be separated by a
comma.

Description of the illustration actions.png

Configure the Title and Task Summary

You can specify a title to identify the human task, and a summary to describe it. The title and
the summary appear in the user’s task list, so that they can easily identify the human task
they’re looking for without having to view the details. You can specify the title and the
summary using plain text, or generate it using expressions.

To configure the title and task summary:

1. Select the human task element in your process diagram and open its Properties pane.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Select one of these options for the Title and Task Summary fields:
 Plain Text: Use a text string to enter the title or summary to identify the
human task.
 Expression: Click the Expression Editor to specify an expression that
calculates the title or summary of the human task. The Expression Editor
dialog box opens. See About Expressions.
 Reset: Use this option to clear the value entered in the field and revert to
defaults.
Note:
Your plain text string and your expression are maintained so that you can toggle
between the two options without losing any data.

Configure the Due Date and Priority

You can specify a due date and a priority for a human task. After the due date is reached, the
human task is marked as overdue.

To configure the due date and priority:

1. In the General tab in the implementation pane, locate the due date and priority fields.
2. In the Due Date field enter an interval to specify the amount of time the assignee has
to complete the instance after the human task is triggered. Select one of the following
options:
 Manually: Use the format ##M##d##h##m. For example:
 One hour and thirty minutes: 1h30m
 One day: 1d
 Four months, two days, eleven hours and thirty minutes: 4M2d11h30m
 Expression Editor: Click the Expression Editor to specify an expression to
calculate due date of the human task.
The Expression Editor dialog box opens. See Work with Expressions.
 Interval: Click Interval to specify the due time using the Select a Time
Interval dialog box.
 Description of the illustration time-interval.png
 Reset: Click Reset to clear the value entered in the field and revert to defaults.
Note:
A task due date is different from a process due date. Setting a due date for a process
does not automatically set a due date for the task.
3. From the Priority drop-down list, select a priority.
Available options are:
 High
 Normal
 Low
These options enable you to sort the Workspace task list based on the task priority.
Additionally, in the Workspace task list, high priority tasks are marked with a red
exclamation mark.

Bypass the Approval Chain

You can bypass the approval chain for a specified action on approval type human tasks. For
example, if you set the Approvers to be All Assignees in sequence and the second of four
approvers rejects the task, you can use this feature to bypass the remaining two approvers.
To bypass the approval chain:
1. In the General tab on the properties pane, locate the Skip Approval on check box.
2. Select the Skip Approval on check box to activate the drop down menu.