Predefined Variables

Predefined variables are global to all parts of the process and, just as their name implies, have already been defined. Most of the predefined variables deal with instances as they relate to activities and are used to keep track of an instance and its status as it flows through a process. Some predefined variables are modifiable and others are not. The following table lists the predefined variables included in Studio.

List of Studio Predefined Variables

Predefined Variable	Permitted Values	Type	Description
action	Modifiable : OK ; FAIL ; RELEASE ; CANCEL ; REPEAT ; ABORT ; BACK ; SKIP ; NONE	Fuego.Lib.Action	Marks the action to be performed on a process instance as a result of previous BP-Method statements. See below Using the action variable.
activity	Read only	Fuego.Lib.Activity	Returns an object that is the current activity.
activity.deadline	Read only	Time	Set automatically if there is a Due transition going from the current activity (receptionTime + the due transition time interval.)
activity.source	Read only	Fuego.Lib.Activity	The activity from which the current instance came into the current activity. Null in the case of Global and Begin activities.
attachments	Read only	Fuego.Lib.Attachment[]	Array of the instance attachments.
children	Read only	String[ordered Object]	Array of the Ids of the instances that are children of this instance, ordered by the list of activities that created them.
creation. participant	Read only.	Participant	Participant that created the process instance.
creation.time	Read only	Time	Creation time of the instance.
currentException	Read only	String	Name of the exception, if the instance is within an exception flow, which was given to it by the throw statement.
deadline	Modifiable.	Time	The instance will expire if it is not completed before the specified time.
description	Modifiable: Any string that does not contain special characters	String	Name of the instance that appears in WorkSpace. By default, it is ProcessName+ id.number.
id.id	Read only	String	An instance's identifier, which uniquely identifies an instance. It includes the deployed process name, organization, organizational unit and the instance Id (including thread id).
id.number	Read only	Int	A number that uniquely identifies an instance within an Engine.
id.copy	Read Only	.	The current instance thread number.
notes	Read only	Int	An array of all notes added to an instance.
organization	Read Only	String	Name of organization where the process is running.
organiztionalUnit	Read Only	String	Name of the process' organizational unit where the process is running, such as Marketing or Finance.
parent.id	Read only	String	The Id of the parent instance of the current instance if there is one; NULL otherwise. In the case of a Procedure, it contains the id of the calling process
parent.copy	Read only	Int	The parent instance thread number.
parent.number	Read only	Int	A number that uniquely identifies the parent instance within an Engine.
participant	Read Only. Any participant	Fuego.Lib.Participant	The human participant stored in directory services that is currently processing the instance.
participant.locale	Read Only	Fuego.Util.Locale	The language, country and variant, if applicable, the participant has set.
participant.next	Modifiable: Any participant	Fuego.Lib.Participant	The participant to which the instance will be sent next. Note: If the instance is grabbed, the `participant.next` is cleared. If the instance is sent BACK or SKIP from an Exception flow or from an Interruption, the only way to reset the `participant.next` is using the Unselect method from the Participant component. See Participant component documentation for further information.
participant.sticky	Modifiable: Bool	Fuego.Lib.Participant	If set to true, the participant.next is set as the preferred participant. Each time the instance moves to an activity and the participant.next is enabled to work with it (belongs to the role where the activity is), the instance is submitted to the participant.next work queue. In the Split and SplitN activities, all generated copies maintain the participant.sticky value from the original instance. In the SplitN method you can change its value. Note: If the participant.next is changed during the process, be sure that `participant.sticky` is reset unless the new `participant.next` is considered the preferred participant.
priority	Modifiable: 1 Lowest ; 2 Low ; 3 Normal ; 4 High ; 5 Highest	Int	Priority of the instance.
process	Read Only. Any process	Fuego.Lib.Process	The process the instance belongs to.
process.id	Read Only	String	The Identifier of the deployed process containing the deployed process' name, its organization and organizational unit.
process.idNumber	Read Only	Int	A number that identifies the process inside an Engine
process.name	Read only	String	The name of the process of the instance.
receptionTime	Read only	Time	The time that the current instance was received at the current activity.
result	Modifiable: Any string	String	It contains the result that you set in the BP-Method. For example, you can set a result and in the outgoing conditional transition of the activity ask for that value. See below for more information.
status	Read Only. RUNNING, EXCEPTION, SUSPENDED, GRABBED, COMPLETED, ABORTED, ACTIVITY_ COMPLETED	ProcessInstanceState	Current status of the process instance.
timeout	Modifiable: String indicating an interval, enclosed in single quotes: '5m'	Interval	The length of time that a BP-Method or an external component has to complete before the engine cancels its execution. By default this variable is set to 5 minutes.
totalCopies	Read only	Int	Number of threads or copies of an instance.

Using the Action Variable

When a BP-Method is executed, multiple types of output can result from the execution. BP-Method execution status is indicated by the value of the predefined variable action.

Depending on the value of action, the engine responds accordingly and saves or undoes (commit or rollback) the changes invoked when the BP-Method is executed.

Valid values for the action variable

The valid values for the action variable are listed in the following sections.

Action.OK or Action.NONE

Indicates that the BP-Method execution was successful.
The default value for action variable. Therefore, it is not mandatory to set a value to the action variable.

Action.FAIL

The way to indicate that the BP-Method has failed. The instance data is reversed and, if there is a rollback BP-Method, it is executed.
Can be used in any kind of BP-Method, and any kind of activity.
If a rollback BP-Method is included for Interactive activities, it is executed. If an Automatic activity fails, the engine retries the BP-Method until it succeeds or invokes the maximum number of retry times and it is routed to an exception handling activity. Maximum number of retry times is set in the Engine Properties option on the Run menu.

Note: A component exception is treated like action=FAIL by the engine. NO error is logged in the engine log. If you want to log a message, you will have to use the logMessage statement inside the Method before the failure.

Action.CANCEL

The way to cancel the BP-Method. The instance data is reversed but the rollback BP-Method, if it exists, will not be executed.
Can be used in activities of Interactive, Grab or Global Creation type.
If the activity type is any other (i.e., Automatic, etc.), this value is ignored, as if it had never been set.
No trace of the BP-Method failure or execution appears in the Audit Trail.

Action.RELEASE

Ends the BP-Method execution successfully.
If the activity type is Interactive, Grab or Automatic the instance is released to the next activity without processing any of the BP-Methods in the current activity, even if they are marked Mandatory.
If the activity type is Join, the original instance will be released and all the active copies will be aborted.
If the activity type is any other (i.e., Global, etc.), this value is ignored, as if it had never been set.

Action.REPEAT

If the activity type is Interactive or Grab, REPEAT indicates that, although the task was successfully executed, it will remain pending. Therefore, the participant will be able to execute it again. Note that if the task is Mandatory, the participant will have to execute it repeatedly until the task appears as completed.
If the activity type is any other (i.e., Global, Automatic, etc.), this value is ignored, as if it had never been set.

Action.ABORT

Aborts the instance. The instance is sent to the End activity and marked as aborted.
Used in activities of Interactive, Grab or Automatic type.
Used in activities of Join type. The original instance will be aborted and therefore, all copies will be aborted.
If the activity type is any other (i.e., Global, etc.), this value is ignored, as if it had never been set.

Note: Instances that are aborted cannot be recovered.

Note: The transaction is committed. Therefore, any change performed in the BP-method is persisted.

Action.BACK

Used in an activity in an exception handling flow to send an instance back to the activity where the exception occurred. Normally, the exception flow is used to fix the exception and, after fixing, sends the instance back.
Sends the instance back to the activity where the exception occurred.
Used in activities of Interactive, Automatic and Grab type, when they are in an exception handling flow.
If the activity type is any other (i.e., Global, etc.) or the activity is not an exceptions handler, this value is ignored, as if it had never been set.
Within procedures or atomic groups, the instance goes back to the Begin activity of the procedure or the group.

Note: The transaction is committed. Therefore, any change performed in the BP-method is persisted.

Action.SKIP

Used in activities belonging to an exception handling flow to send an instance back to an activity in the main flow of the process. The instance goes to the point of BP-Method failure and is immediately released to the next activity without re-performing the BP-Method that caused the failure.
Sends the instance to the activity immediately AFTER the one where an exception occurred.
Used in activities of Interactive or Automatic type, when they are exceptions handlers.
If the activity type is any other (i.e., Grab, Global, etc.) or the activity was not an exceptions handler, this value will be ignored as if it had never been set.
Within procedures and atomic groups, the instance goes to the next activity that follows within the procedure or group.

Note: The transaction is committed. Therefore, any change performed in the BP-method is persisted.

Example: action variable

The following BP-Method example shows how you can manually set the action variable if a Boolean expression evaluates to true:

	if selectedButton == "Yes" then
	action = OK
	
	elseif selectedButton == "Abort" then
	action = ABORT
	
	else
	action = BACK

Using the result variable

The result variable contains the result that you set in the BP-Method. For example, you can set a result and in the outgoing conditional transition of the activity ask for that value. Further in the process this value will no longer be available. The result variable is persistent between calls to the BP-Methods and is reset when the instance has already flown through the corresponding transition to another activity.

As well if the action variable is not used in the BP-Method, the predefined variable result values are mapped to the variable action. For example, if the BP-Method has the line result = "fail", this is equivalent to action = Action.FAIL.

If the BP-Method uses the action variable, then the result can have any value, either predefined or not. For example:

	result = "release"; action = Action.FAIL'; 
	//in this case the BP-Method fails 
	result = "abort"; action = RELEASE'; 
	// in this case the BP-Method does not fail

The action variable is reset at every BP-Method invocation to the default value while the result variable is reset after the instance flows into the next activity.

Note: The predefined variable result is used to maintain compatibility to previous version.

Using the "timeout" variable

The timeout variable defines the time that a BP-Method has to complete its execution. If this time is exceeded, the Engine cancels the BP-Method execution and assumes that it has failed.

There is a maximum timeout defined for all BP-Methods of all processes within the engine. This value is defined in the Process Administrator or Studio Engine Preferences.

The timeout set within a BP-Method (timeout variable) cannot exceed the Maximum timeout set in the Process Administrator. If you set a greater value, a runtime exception is thrown and the BP-Method execution is aborted.

See Timeout for further information.

Examples

Case01: Suspend Action

Find the project ActionsCase01.fpr in the installation directory, in the studio/samples directory to study an example about handling the SUSPEND action and assigning the participant who suspended the instance.

To test this example, use the participant: test.