Flow form
Completing the Design tab

Field

Description

Category

Read-only. Displays values corresponding to the Template that was selected when the flow was created. For example, this field displays FlowStandard for ordinary flows and values beginning with ScreenFlow for screen flows.

Optional. Specify the work type that this flow usually is used with. Typically, this class is derived from the Work- base class. In the unusual cases — a class derived from the Embed- or Data- base class — this field is required.

To view the specified work type, click .

Except in rare cases with unusual class inheritance, accept the default value, the Applies To key part of the flow. This field supports proper operation of SmartPrompts during Visio editing.

Field

Description

Select to have these listed local flow actions display at runtime in alphabetical order by Short Description (.pyLabel), rather than the order listed in this section.

Select to have these listed local actions display at runtime above any other local actions listed in each assignment's Property Panel.

Specify the local actions that are to be available in every assignment. Click to add rows. To delete a row, select it and then click .

In each row, for fields that correspond to rules, you can click to view the specified item, or to create a new one.

Field

Description

After a flow is saved and has been executed at least once, click to review a statistical analysis of the flow actions selected during processing.

The Flow Analysis report (Summary of Actions Taken) can provide insight for business process improvement. The report can help managers understand the real-world choices of your users and compare their behavior with the likelihood estimates on the flow diagram.
For example, if the likelihood of a complex, lengthy, or expensive action was estimated at 2 percent, but experience shows that the action is selected 10 percent of the time, the situation merits investigation and research.

Complete the query parameters:

• Use Work pool — Select the application name.
• Do not group by Class — Select to report the statistics by work type. Clear to consolidate all work types in one set of statistics.
• Limit query results to — Select Actions for this version to limit the report to work items processed only by this flow — the exact RuleSet and version. Select Actions for any version to include in the report those work items processed by other flows with the same Applies To and Flow Name key parts but correspond to other work types of the application.
• Items entered from — Select a starting date for the report.
• to — Select an ending date for the report.

Click  Run Report  . The analysis searches through the history of work items that have used this flow, for the selected time interval and work types.

This report may require several seconds to display.

Publish

After you complete this rule and save it, click  Publish to create a WSDL file in BPEL format for this flow. Complete the associated dialog box. The generated WSDL file is placed in the ServiceExport directory. This file is useful to developers of another Business Process Management application that supports BPEL and that is to call this flow through Service BPEL rules. See About Service BPEL rules.

This button appears only if the PegaForecaster RuleSet is in your RuleSet stack. When clicked, the system looks for a simulation scenario rule with a name according to this flow's Applies To class and flow type. If the simulation scenario rule is not found, one is created. The simulation scenario rule is used with the PegaRULES Process Simulator.

Generate Services

After you complete this rule and save it, click  Generate Services to start the Service Accelerator. See About the Service Accelerator.

XPDL

You can represent your process flow diagrams using industry standard XML formats (XPDL and BPEL), enabling you to transfer your process flow definitions to other flow management systems.

The feature to export a flow into XPDL is supported only for installations with Web Logic or Tomcat as the App server. However, for Websphere-based installations, your System Administrator can put Xalan jars into the Websphere endorsed directory.

Click to generate an XML file from this flow in the XML Process Definition Language V2 format defined by the Workflow Management Coalition.

Click to generate an XML file from this flow in the Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) format defined by OASIS.