Advanced Task (External Forms) activity

An activity that combines the operations of the Dynamic Parallel, Dynamic Sequential, and Voting activities. This activity lets participants in a running process adapt to new requirements. They can add new participants to complete a human task in parallel, in sequence, or as voters. When the activity runs, process participants can add users through the task list or Manager app.


Advanced Task activity

Configure the Advanced Task (External Forms) activity

To configure the Advanced Task (External Forms) activity, do the procedure in this topic.

Good to Know

How to Start

  1. Open Process Builder.

    For information about how to open this screen, refer to Process Builder.


    Open Process Builder
  2. In Process Builder, in the Activity Library, open the External Forms tab.

    Open External Forms tab
  3. On the External Forms tab, drag the Advanced Task activity onto your process.

    Drag Advanced Task activity

Procedure

  1. Complete the fields on the General Configuration screen.
  2. Click Participants Participants icon
  3. Add or change participants for your task on the Participants screen.
  4. Click User Defined Properties User Defined Properties icon.
  5. Configure user defined properties on the User Defined Properties screen.
  6. Click Update Process Instance Variable Update Process Instance Variable icon.
  7. Set process data variables whose values you want to change a variable on the Update Process Instance Variable screen.
  8. Click Voting Task Configuration Voting Task Configuration icon
  9. Binds data to an XML schema to manage approvals as votes on the Voting Task Configuration screen.
  10. (Optional) ​When the task changes status, you can send notifications using e-mail, Viva Engage, Salesforce Chatter, or SMS:
  11. (Optional) If you want to configure your task to show on a mobile device, click Advanced Advanced icon > Mobile View Mobile View icon.

General Configuration

Specifies the basic settings for the Advanced Task activity.

Figure: General Configuration screen

General Configuration screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Display Name
Description:
Specifies the activity name that shows in your process.
Allowed Values:
One line of text (a string).

Accepted:

  • Letters
  • Numbers
  • Spaces
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
No
Example:
This is a common configuration field that is used in many examples. Refer to:
  • Examples - Step-by-step use case examples, information about what types of examples are provided in the AgilePoint NX Product Documentation, and other resources where you can find more examples.

Description
Description:
Specifies an optional text description for your activity.
Allowed Values:
More than one line of text.
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
No

Time To Complete
Description:
Specifies the maximum amount of time that should be allowed for the completion of the task associated with this activity before it is considered Overdue. This is a combination of a number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks.
Allowed Values:
A number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks.
Default Value:
1 Day
Accepts Variables:
Yes

External form to be associated with this task
Description:
Specifies the name of the task that shows in a participant's task list.

In most cases, for processes that use ASP.NET forms, this value also determines the file names for the .aspx form pages.

Allowed Values:
The values for this property change with the type of process you are using:
  • Generic - Does this:
    • Specifies the name that shows in the participant's Task List for this task.
    • If you create an ASP.NET project for this process in AgilePoint Developer, a new .aspx page is created for each human task with the same file name as the value of the Work to Perform property.
  • SPList - Specifies the name that shows in the participant's Task List for this task.
  • AgileForms - Specifies the name that shows in the participant's Task List for this task.

    The default value for this field is FormRender. AgilePoint recommends you change this value.

Default Value:
None, except for AgileForms processes.
Accepts Variables:
No

Participants

Specifies the people, groups, or roles assigned to a human task..

Figure: Participants screen

Participants screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Details
Description:
Shows participants for the task.
Allowed Values:
  • Any user, group, or role - You can add users, groups, or roles as participants, as long as ProcessInitiator is also included in the list.
  • A process data variable.
  • ProcessInitiator - This is a process data variable for that represents a participant who completes a form to start a process instance. This value is required for start tasks.
Default Value:
  • ProcessInitiator - For start tasks.
  • None - For other tasks.
Accepts Variables:
Yes
Example:
Refer to:

Add Roles, Groups and Users
Description:
Specifies a category of participants to add to the task. The list of participants of the type you select shows.
Allowed Values:
  • Groups - Shows your AgilePoint groups.

    To create a group, refer to Groups.

  • Roles - Shows your AgilePoint roles.

    To create a role, refer to Roles.

  • Users - Shows your AgilePoint users.

    To add a new user, refer to Users.

When a group or role with more than 100 members is added to the participants list, a warning message indicates that performance may be negatively impacted.

Default Value:
Roles
Accepts Variables:
No
Example:
Refer to:
Limitations:

The warning message for maximum participants is available in these releases:

Search
Function:
Does a search based on the specified criteria.

The maximum number of participants to complete this task
Description:
Specifies the number of group members who need to be assigned as participants for a task.
Allowed Values:
  • An integer that specifies a number of participants within a group required to complete a task.
  • Unlimited Participants - Specifies that all members of a group are required to participate.
Default Value:
1
Example:
If the participant is set to a group of users, and Max number of people to complete this task is 2, then 2 members of the group actually are required to participate in the task.

Assign task to the same participants each time activity runs
Description:
Specifies if, when a activity runs more than one time during a process, the same participants must complete the task each time.
Allowed Values:
  • Selected - If an activity is runs more than one time, the same participants who took assignment the first time are also assigned the task each time after.
  • Deselected - If an activity is runs more than one time, any participants can take assignment each time.
Default Value:
Selected
Example:
Ann is part of a group, and takes assignment for a task. She rejects the task. If this field is selected, the next time the process starts this task, the same user, Ann is assigned the task. If this field is deselected, the task goes back into the pool, and anyone in the group can take assignment.

Also refer to:

Approval Order
Description:
Specifies if the participants can approve the tasks in a specified order.
Allowed Values:
  • Parallel - The task does not complete until the specified participants complete their approvals. However, it is not necessary to complete in any order.
  • Sequential - The task does not complete until the specified participants complete their approvals in a specified order.
Default Value:
Parallel

User Defined Properties

Specifies ClientData process data variable values that are associated with a human task activity when a process runs. You can specify a set of variables as name/value pairs that are sent to your web forms. This is an alternative to sending data with URL parameters.

Figure: User Defined Properties screen

User Defined Properties screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Name
Description:
Specifies the name for the ClientData.

The ClientData property stores data related to the human task activity. This is like defining a process data variable to store specific values.

Allowed Values:
One line of text (a string).

Accepted:

  • Letters
  • Numbers
  • Spaces
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes
Limitations:

Some information about third-party integrations is outside the scope of the AgilePoint NX Product Documentation. It is the responsibility of the vendors who create and maintain these technologies to provide this information. This includes specific business use cases and examples; explanations for third-party concepts; details about the data models and input and output data formats for third-party technologies; and various types of IDs, URL patterns, connection string formats, or other technical information that is specific to the third-party technologies. For more information, refer to Where Can I Find Information and Examples for Third-Party Integrations?

Value
Description:
The value for the ClientData variable.
Allowed Values:
A number or a text string that can contain spaces.

You can set the value for the process data variable by using an XML value.

Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes
Limitations:

Some information about third-party integrations is outside the scope of the AgilePoint NX Product Documentation. It is the responsibility of the vendors who create and maintain these technologies to provide this information. This includes specific business use cases and examples; explanations for third-party concepts; details about the data models and input and output data formats for third-party technologies; and various types of IDs, URL patterns, connection string formats, or other technical information that is specific to the third-party technologies. For more information, refer to Where Can I Find Information and Examples for Third-Party Integrations?

Type
Description:
Determines the data type for the ClientData variable.
Allowed Values:
  • string
  • int
  • bool
  • decimal
Default Value:
string

Create Create icon
Function:
Creates a row where you can specify a ClientData property.

Delete Delete icon
Function:
Deletes the selected row from the user defined properties list.

Update Process Instance Variable

Updates a value for a process data variable based on a specified type of event.

Figure: Update Process Instance Variable screen

Update Process Instance Variable screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Process Instance Variable
Description:
Specifies the name of the process data variable you want to update on the basis of an event type.
Allowed Values:
  • The name of process data variable to be updated.
  • You can also use the XML variable associated with the process.
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes
Example:

Value
Description:
Specifies a value for the process data variable that is set when an event occurs.
Allowed Values:
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes

When To Update
Description:
Specifies the event that causes the process data variable to be set to your value.
Allowed Values:
  • Enter - The process goes into the activity.
  • Assign - A task is assigned to a participant.
  • Cancel - A task is cancelled.
  • Complete - A task is completed.
  • Leave - The process goes out of the activity.
Default Value:
None

Create Create icon
Function:
Creates a row to add a process data variable, value, and event.

Delete Delete icon
Function:
Deletes the selected row from the variable list.

Voting Task Configuration

Binds data to an XML schema to manage approvals as votes To configure voting, you must map the approvals to the schema for your input form.

Figure: Voting Task Configuration screen

Voting Task Configuration screen

Fields

Field NameDefinition

Select the repeating data node that will contain the approvers data
Description:
Specifies a group of approvers for a human task.
Allowed Values:
An XML variable that represents a group of approvers.

This is a parent node where the children represent individual approvers within the group.

Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes

Store The Voting Result In
Description:
Specifies the final result that says if a task is approved or rejected.
Allowed Values:
A process data variable that accepts a Boolean value, or the text true or false.
  • True - The task is approved.
  • False - The task is rejected.
Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes

The result is considered when % of the users approve
Description:
Specifies the minimum proportion of approvers required to approve the item, expressed as a percent.
Allowed Values:
An integer, or a process data variable that stores an integer.

You can use App Data screen to specify a process data variable.

Default Value:
None
Accepts Variables:
Yes
Example:
If you have enter 60, and you have 7 approvers, at least 5 of the approvers would need to vote Yes for the item to be approved because 4/7=57%, and 5/7=71%.