More about Flow rules

Work type labels

When the Creates a new work object? box on the Process tab is selected, the Short Description on the flow rule appears to application users as a work type label. The Short Description texts appear in the New selection box on the Process Work navigation panel, one for each flow rule checked.

Enter a Short Description value that is unique within your application and meaningful to application users.

If your application is to support users in multiple locales, choose a Short Description text carefully and maintain a list of these text values. When practical, choose a text value already included in a language pack, to simplify later localization. See About the Localization wizard.

Uploading a Visio file to start

If you have in advance a Visio diagram that contains useful starting information for a flow rule, you can incorporate (or "harvest") the VSD file and the information it contains directly into the new rule. See About the Rule-from-File wizard.

Java code display

When you save a flow rule, the system converts the rule to Java source code. As a learning or debugging aid, you can review this Java code.

Click the Show Java toolbar button () to see the system-generated Java code that implements the flow rule processing. The window presents a read-only preview of the Java that implements this rule instance. This Java code is not identical to the Java that executes at runtime, which includes Java code inlined from other rule instances and reflects rules in the requestor's RuleSet list.

Associated binary images

When you save a flow rule, the system automatically creates a binary file rule storing the Visio flow diagram as a JPG image. The property pyVisioRFB in the flow rule links the flow rule to this binary file rule. (No history instances are created for these generated binary file rules.)

The binary file rule has the same RuleSet and version as the flow rule, so both are normally included in a Zip file created by the Export Archive tool.

Limits on looping

A flow execution can loop back to a task completed earlier, either through connector or a ticket. The system enforces maximum limits of 500 executions of a task (on a single work object), to detect and prevent infinite looping. In addition, a flow execution can be resumed (such as through a specific ticket) a maximum of 500 times. If necessary, you can adjust these limits by overriding standard System Settings rules Pega-ProCom.MaxFlowEnteredCount and Pega-ProCom.MaxFlowLoopCount

	assignment, task, flow action, language pack, likelihood, notification task, router task.
	About Binary File rules About Decision Tree rules About Flow Action rules  About Map Value rules  Debugging with the Tracer  Portal basics — Using the Process Work workspace
	Atlas — Standard flows Atlas — Standard activities for flows

About Flow rules