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## Function Activity

A function activity is defined by the PL/SQL stored procedure or external program that it calls. Function activities are typically used to perform fully automated steps in the process. As a PL/SQL stored procedure, a function activity accepts standard arguments and can return a completion result.

If you pass a parameter for the stored procedure, you can expose that parameter as an activity attribute. The activity attribute's value can be set when you define that activity as a node in your process. Note that these activity attributes are available only to the current activity and are not global like item type attributes. See: To Define Activity Attribute Values.

As an external program, a function activity is able to enqueue payload information into an Oracle8i outbound queue for some external agent to dequeue and consume. The external agent can similarly enqueue updated attributes and a completion result into an inbound queue that the Workflow Engine consumes and processes.

As an external Java program, a function activity is able to enqueue payload information into an Oracle8i outbound queue for the Java Function Activity Agent to dequeue and consume. The results of the Java program are enqueued into an inbound queue that the Workflow Engine consumes and processes. See: To Create a Function Activity.

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