Case Manager portal —
How to process assignments and cases in bulk

The Bulk Actions tool in the Case Manager portal lets managers:

Create top-level cases for any case type in the application, and specify their labels, descriptions, and work statuses.
Update the labels and descriptions of cases created in Bulk Actions.
Process selected assignments or cases at the same time.

The manager selects Profile menu > Bulk Actions in the portal header to open the tool.

Create cases

The manager:

Selects the Create radio button.
In the Case drop-down menu, selects a case type.
Clicks the Add Row icon to enter the first item in the grid:
Edits the following fields:

Label — Enters the case's label, which appears on the user form header and in the Category column on My Worklist. The default is the case type name. Uses property pyLabel.
Description — Enters information about the case. Uses property pyDescription.
Status — Enters the work item status.

Optionally, adds more rows to create additional cases in the selected case type.
When finished editing the grid, clicks Create Cases.

To customize the grid contents (for example, add columns for start date, user story, bug number, and so on), copy the section pyBulkCreate to your application and modify the grid to suit your requirements.

The system creates a case; the ID appears in the ID column. The word "Succeeded" appears in the Processing Results column. The manager can click the ID to open the case's user form. The newly created task appears on the manager's My Worklist. The manager can then use the Bulk Actions Process function to route the work to another operator or workbasket.

The Label, Description,and Status values are read-only. The manager can use the Update function to edit labels and descriptions (see next section).

The system does not create a case if it encounters a locking issue or validation error. The word "Failed" appear in the Processing Results column. Hover the mouse pointer over the field to display the error message.

The manager can remove the rows on the table by clicking the Clear button.

Update case labels and descriptions

The manager:

Selects the Update radio button.
In the Case drop-down menu, selects a case type. A filter grid and a table of cases created in the Bulk Action tool appear.
To filter the contents of the cases table, the manager adds a row to the grid, selects a filter property, the condition, and a value. Multiple filter conditions can be specified. The manager clicks the Filter Cases button to apply the conditions to the table of cases.
The manager can update the Name and Description values in the table.
If another user currently has a case open, a lock icon appears in the first column; the values in the row are read-only. The manager can hover the mouse pointer over the icon to display the operator's name.
To apply the updates, the manager clicks the Update button. The word "Succeeded" appear in the Processing Results column. If the system encounters a validation error. The word "Failed" appear in the Processing Results column. Hover the mouse pointer over the field to display the error message.

You can allow managers to override Update validation by adding the pxIgnoreBulkValidations privilege to the manager's Access of Role to Object record. For example, this privilege enables managers to re-open and update resolved cases. The privilege skips the basic process engine validations including the validate rule configured in the respective case (see the Validation option on the Case Designer landing page Details tab.)

To customize the grid contents, copy the section pyBulkUpdate to your application and modify the grid to suit your requirements.

Process assignments or cases

The manager selects the Process radio button to create a list of assignments or cases that match a set of criteria, and process the work items at the same time.

For example, a manager can transfer cases among operators (within your group) or workbaskets, or apply a specific flow action to all the assignments on a worklist. A manager can wait and watch as the system processes the assignments, or send the processing to an agent that processes them in background mode.

In the filter table at the top of the tool, the manager:

In the first column, selects a property that is available to the selected case type.
Enters one or more characters used in the property's short description. Case Type, Assigned to Operator, and Work Status are the defaults.
To return a list of cases instead of assignments, removes from the table all Assigned To property criteria such as Assigned to Operator (pyAssignedToOperator), Assigned to Workbasket (pyAssignedToWorkbasket), and so on. To remove criteria, clicks the delete row icon .
In the second column, selects the condition. The available conditions depend upon the property type you selected in the first column.
In the third column, enters or selects the property value. If available, uses auto-complete to find a value that is available to this property. The manager enters one or more characters used in the property's short description or the name key value; the results displays both values.

The Case Type criteria is required and cannot be removed. For any condition other than Is Any, auto-complete can be used to select a case type in the application.
Clicks the add row icon to add criteria.
When the manager has completed the filter criteria table, she clicks the Filter Work button. The tool displays the results in a table beneath the Select Action button. An item must meet all the criteria in order to appear in the table.
The manager can click an item's ID to open the user form. If necessary, he can adjust the results by changing the criteria and click the Filter Work button again.
The manager selects the items she wants to include in the process or clicks the Select All check box.
From the Select Actions menu, the manager selects the action she wants to use. The results are an intersection of flow actions shared by all the items in the list. By default, the Transfer Assignment action is always available for items.
Completes the fields in the pop-up dialog.
Optionally, selects the Run in background? check box (if available) if he want to use the background processing facility. See the next section in this topic for information.
Selects OK to start processing and close the dialog.

A Processing Results column appends to the table. Each item contains an icon and a label indicating the processing status.The word "Succeeded" appears in the Processing Results column to indicate that the item was successfully processed. The word "Failed" appear in the Processing Results column. Hover the mouse pointer over the field to display the error message. If you selected Run in background?, a indicates that the item is queued for processing by the background agent.

Bulk processing of unsent emails

The Bulk Actions menu lets managers view and process unsent emails in bulk. The FixCorrespondence flow is invoked when an attempt to send correspondence using Data-Corr-Email.Send activity fails. The flow creates an assignment for the unsent email and presents flow actions to reject or resend the unsent correspondence. Use the Work-.ResendCorr flow action to resend email correspondence items that do not require individual modification and that failed to be sent for external reasons, such as the server being down. Use the Work-.CorrReject flow action to reject the selected correspondence.

About background processing by the Pega-ProCom agent

If you need to transfer or process dozens or hundreds of assignments, it may be preferable to perform this processing in background, and be notified with an email message when the processing is complete. The Pega-ProCom agent includes an activity that provides such processing.

To use this facility:

Review the Data-Agent-Queue instances on your system; there is one for the Pega-ProCom agent on each node. Ensure that the row identifying the AgentBulkProcessing activity is enabled on at least one node, and that the overall Enable this agent? box is selected for that node.
Ensure that an email account data instance (Data-EmailAccount class) is defined to send email from your application.
For each manager who is to use this facility, ensure that a valid email address is present in the Operator tab of the Operator ID form.
Complete input values for one of the Bulk Processing facilities. Select the Run in Background check box.
When you start the process, it will run in the background and you can go on to other areas of the application. Background processing may take minutes or hours, depending on the number of work items involved.
When background processing by the Pega-ProCom agent is complete, the agent sends an email message listing the count of assignments selected and processed, and a list of the keys of assignments not processed. (Bulk processing may be unable to complete assignments for various reasons, including the inability to acquire a lock.)

How it works

When you start the bulk process, the system creates an instance of the Assign-Schedule-Future class, which serves to notify the Pega-ProCom agent that a bulk processing request is pending. It changes the owner of assignments to be processed to the reserved value pyBulkProcessing, so that they are no longer on the original worklist or workbasket.

As it processes assignments, the Pega-ProCom agent temporarily creates instances of the Assign-Schedule-InterimResults class. When processing is complete, it forms and sends the email message.

Notes

Bulk processing is available only to users who hold the standard privilege Work-.PerformBulk.
These features (and the contents of the with actions list) depend on the current work pool name and on the flow actions available for each assignment. For example, after you choose an operator in the Transfer work from list, only assignments for that operator that include the standard flow action Work-.Transfer (or a custom rule overriding this standard rule) appear.
Four standard system settings rules (Rule-Admin-System-Settings rule type) affect background bulk processing. You can override them with other settings if necessary. See Atlas — Standard System Settings rules.
Bulk processing may detect problem assignments. When this occurs, it sets the Instruction field of such assignments to the text value Error: Bulk.
Some flow actions are not appropriate for bulk processing and do not appear on the flow action list. (To mark a flow action as inappropriate, select the Disqualify this action from bulk processing? field on the Action tab of the Flow Action form.)
On the work item history display, the phrase "system on behalf of NAME" (where NAME is an operator full name) indicates that bulk processing requested by that operator occurred in background.

	bulk processing, operator, sample application, transfer, urgency, worklist, work pool name, work type
	About the Case Manager portal Understanding the Pega-ProCom agent

Case Manager portal —How to process assignments and cases in bulk