Getting the Predecessor Task

Hi All,

I have a task that has multiple Transitions. For all the transitions, I need to add 1 CGI Task after that task to get some user input. Once the user inputs and submits the CGI, I want it to transition to the same task as before adding the CGI Task. This need to be done without asking the user in the CGI task to select the Transition. So basically instead of user selecting the transition in the CGI Task, I want him to use in the same previous task as before.

This scenario will be used at few other places in the same workflow.

Attaching a screenshot for the Before and After.

Thanks for your help

TeamSite6.7
Solaris
WFM

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ISCBorisB

Hi All,

I have a task that has multiple Transitions. For all the transitions, I need to add 1 CGI Task after that task to get some user input. Once the user inputs and submits the CGI, I want it to transition to the same task as before adding the CGI Task. This need to be done without asking the user in the CGI task to select the Transition. So basically instead of user selecting the transition in the CGI Task, I want him to use in the same previous task as before.

This scenario will be used at few other places in the same workflow.

Attaching a screenshot for the Before and After.

Thanks for your help

TeamSite6.7
Solaris
WFM

There are few ways to do it. For example, you can keep three original transitions to the same CGI task. Use
"wfvarfinishop" element to indicate which path has been actually followed. Your CGI then can obtain that
"Finish" variable value and transition accordingly.

Just curious, why can't you simply use three simple transitions to three CGI tasks that use the same code?
Workflow itself is after all an oriented Graph, nothing more. Short of aesthetics, what's wrong with few more arrows?

tsatt

Thanks ISCBorisB for your reply.

How can I set up the Transition that was selected by the user. The "wfvarfinishop" does not allow me to set transition. so either I need to be able to know in the CGI task what was the previous transition selected by the user or in the Task after the transition happens set the Transition selected by the user.
Also forgot to mention that the task before the CGI task is a user task.

As to using three simple transitions to three CGI tasks, I need the same scenario for 4 tasks and each have about 3-5 transitions meaning adding 12-20 CGI Tasks instead of 1 for each task.

Thanks

ISCBorisB

Thanks ISCBorisB for your reply.

How can I set up the Transition that was selected by the user. The "wfvarfinishop" does not allow me to set transition. so either I need to be able to know in the CGI task what was the previous transition selected by the user or in the Task after the transition happens set the Transition selected by the user.
Also forgot to mention that the task before the CGI task is a user task.

As to using three simple transitions to three CGI tasks, I need the same scenario for 4 tasks and each have about 3-5 transitions meaning adding 12-20 CGI Tasks instead of 1 for each task.

Thanks

My apologies... The schema I've proposed will not work in your case - I was thinking more along the lines of
"Either Task A or Task B can transition to CGI - which one was it this time?"

What your "Task 1" actually is? If that's an external/URL/CGI Task - you can make it set "transitional" Job variable
right before exiting. That variable can then be evaluated by CGI code.

Other than that, the only alternative I can think of is to get/parse raw Worfklow/Tasks Objects XML representations.
That said, Workflow and Task objects' structure and behavior on WF Events are proprietary. Documentation/Support on
that is extremely limited.

tsatt

Task 1 is a UserTask/GroupTask.

Well, as a last fallback, I can always get the CSWorkflowEvent array and then match the corresponding task to see what the transition was, and use that value. I am just wondering if that is going to increase the execution time of the workflow.

P.S. the CGI script is a Jsp where I am using the CSSDK.

Thanks

ISCBorisB

...I can always get the CSWorkflowEvent array...

Beware... I had not tried that in WFM. In WFT however similar entities were not very reliable to unravel an exact order
of events, especially in cases when Flow loops back (rejected/try again and similar scenarios) and can take different turns

Rick Poulin

Well, as a last fallback, I can always get the CSWorkflowEvent array and then match the corresponding task to see what the transition was, and use that value. I am just wondering if that is going to increase the execution time of the workflow.

Yes, you can reliably do this since the array returned by wf.getEvents() is sorted chronologically. Therefore, the most recent event or two (I don't recall if it's index 0 or index length-1) has the info you're looking for. This would have a negligible effect on the performance of your task. Since the sorting is not actually a documented feature, you could make your code more robust by actually sorting the events by date yourself, but that could very well have a performance impact.

tsatt

Thanks both, for your suggestions.