A process instance is a single enactment of a process. The creation of instances is generally triggered by an event such as when an employee submits an expense report.
Within a Business Process, there must be a way to create an individual instance of a Process. There are several internal and external ways to create an instance. Instances are created in the Begin activity and stopped when they reach the End activity of the process. Once an instance has been created, it begins its flow through each activity in the process according to transition rules and Business Process Methods logic. The following sections describe how a Process Instance is created.
| Activity | Creation Method |
|---|---|
| Global Creation | The Global Creation activity is the most common way an instance is created in a process. It appears in WorkSpace where an end user can manually click it, complete its BP-method and send the instance on in the process. No special BP-method is required to create an instance. |
| Global Automatic | The Global Automatic activity is another common way to create an instance. However, this activity type does not create instances automatically. The create method of the Process Instance component must be invoked from a BP-method in order to create an instance |
| Subflow | The Subflow activity creates instances in the subprocess indicated in its Activity Properties dialog box. Instance creation is automatic |
| Process Creation | The Process Creation activity also creates instances in the subprocess indicated in its Activity Properties dialog box. Instance creation is automatic |
The Process Instance component contains the method create, which allows you to create an instance in the process indicated by the parameters of the method's template. The create method can be called from any BP Method. This component comes with the Studio installation. It is located in the fuego module on the Component Browser in the BP Method Editor.
Instances can also be created by external events. The external event triggers a Global Creation activity in a process. One of the most common ways in which this happens is by integrating an existing Web application with a process. For example, if a customer places an order through a Web application, an instance can be created in the corresponding process. See Creating instances from a Web Page for further information.