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wftask won't start

Ulf

Here's the situation:
I have two workflows:
1) an assign to build, which moves files from a development area into a build/integration area,
2) a deploy from build which starts the deployment and approval process through QA and production

The 2nd (deploy from build) workflow works great. The 1st workflow does its first few steps, then sends an email to an approver, who is the person allowed to run the deploy_from_build workflow. I want the 2nd workflow to start automatically without extra clicks on the user's part, after he does an approval step after receiving the email from the 1st workflow.

I've tried doing it both as a cgitask, and a wftask.

cgitask: The owner of the first workflow is not the same as the approver that starts the 2nd workflow, and because the approver who would kick off the cgitask is a grouptask, I can't specify the exact user in the cgitask to cause it to start immediately (and yes, I'm aware of the requirements to use immediate't' in a cgitask)

wftask: for some reason, nothing happens at all. I don't even see anything in any logs. Just to verify, I created a short workflow that just kicks off a nested workflow. It also did nothing. So, I loaded up the examples/author_assignment_with_nested_workflow.wft and tested it. It ALSO did nothing. When I say nothing, I mean it got to the wftask step, and never kicked off another workflow. When I do iwgetwfobj, it shows only the original workflow, and no others, and shows the current workflow as being at the task ID of the <wftask> task.

Can somebody provide me a direction on either a) how to get what I need done, or b) figure out why the nested workflows with <wftask> don't seem to be working.

Thanks much for any help you can provide.
Feel free to post or email me directly with answers or requests for more information.

David Sorenson
david.sorenson@jnli.com
Web Administrator
Teamsite Adminstrator
Jackson National Life Insurance

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Comments

Ulf

Oh, my environment:

We're running TS 5.5.2 on Solaris 8.

Migrateduser

Could you attach your wft file that contains the <wftask> element? That might help people debug your issue. Also the wft file you are trying to invoke would probably help as well.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Ulf

Here's the simplified wft and the one it's attempting to invoke.
Please note: a lot of this is filled with test variables etc pulled down from a much larger workflow that I cut down to allow me to test the wft with a smaller one.

SQlserver configuration.jpg

Ulf

Oops, only got 1 attached to the last post...the originating workflow. Here's the target workflow being called by the originating.

Story.PNG

XML.txt

Migrateduser

Ulf,

The system is behaving as designed. When your workflow 1 reaches the wftask, the task is activated. The task will then appear in the To Do list of the task owner and wait for that user to Start the task. (In this way, it is similar to a CGI task.) When the user starts the wftask, the job instantiation form will appear for the nested workflow. The system behaves this way because the nested job may require additional user inputs.

I would like to add options to (1) start the wftask immediately if it was activated by the job's owner (as with a CGI immediate task), and (2) start the nested job without user interaction. However, this is not the current behavior.

Brinko Kobrin
Interwoven Staff Engineer

Ulf

Thanks for the info, Brinko.

Given that a wftask does not provide the behavior I'd like...

I already wrote a version using a cgitask to instantiate the nested workflow, because I didn't want the original workflow to have to wait for the nested one to complete before finishing.

The steps at the critical point were:

emailtask -> sends an email to a group of approvers
grouptask -> approve creation of nested workflow
cgitask -> start the workflow

This works perfectly, as long as the same user is the owner of the original workflow, and is the member of the grouptask that does the approval step. Unfortunately, that is not normally the case. A developer starts (and owns) the original workflow, and a director from a group of directors can approve it. Is there any way to get either a) the grouptask to change the owner of the following cgitask to be the person that took ownership of the grouptask (ie, using WFTask.pm) or b) allow a cgitask to be group ownable?

Thanks for all the help!

Migrateduser

Is there any way to get either a) the grouptask to change the owner of the following cgitask to be the person that took ownership of the grouptask (ie, using WFTask.pm)

You can't get the grouptask to change the owner of the cgitask, but (as discussed in another thread in this forum) you can have an intermediate external task that gets the owner of the grouptask (using GetOwner) and sets the owner of the cgitask (using SetOwner).

or b) allow a cgitask to be group ownable?

This cannot be done.

BTW, the "owner" of a job does not have to be the person who started the job, if that helps.

Brinko Kobrin
Interwoven Staff Engineer

Ulf

Thanks again, Brinko.

If I were to use the intermediate externaltask step, wouldthe following cgitask then be able to start immediately? Or would it require the user to 'start task' [that which I am trying to avoid]?

Adam Stoller

cgitasks can only start immediately under a limited set of conditions:

[Must have immediate="t" set]

1) If the cgitask has start="t" AND is owned by the user who initiated the job.

2) if the cgitask directly follows a usertask AND is owned by the SAME user who owned the usertask.

3) if the cgitask directly follows another cgitask AND is owned by the SAME user who owned the previous cgitask AND the previous cgitask use TeamSite::CGI_lite::iwcallback() (rather than TeamSite::WFtask::CallBack()).

I think those are the only conditions under which a cgitask will run immediately. Any other situation generally invalidates the ability for TeamSite to know whether the owner of the cgitask is logged in and on what machine.

--fish
(Interwoven Senior Technical Consultant)

jimE

does entry number 2 mean that all I have to do to have my cgi_task start automatically is insert a user_task before it with the same owner? I tried this and the usertask now needs to be started? is this right? thanks

Migrateduser

Yes, by design a usertask must be acted upon by someone manually.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com