In this task we add the Send Reminder automatic activity, which
reminds the employee that a report he has submitted requires editing. Since
we want this activity to execute after a given interval of time has elapsed, we connect it with a
due transition.
The due transition is fired by a timer on the activity it is sourced
from. You add a due transition that is executed when a certain amount of
time has elapsed after an instance has arrived at the Edit Report activity.
To add the Send Reminder activity and the Reminder due transition:
- Make the Employee swimlane wider, and shift the Edit Report
activity down, so there is room to insert a new activity above it.
- Right-click in the space between the Edit Report activity and
the Begin, and click
Add
Activity
(
).
The
Activity dialog box appears.
- Enter
Send Reminder in the
Name field, and click
OK.
The Send Reminder automatic activity is added to the
diagram.
- Right-click on the Edit Report activity and click
Add due transition (
).
The mouse pointer will begin dragging a transition line.
- Click on the Send Reminder activity.
The
Transition from Activity dialog appears.
- Enter
Reminder in the
Name field.
- In the Properties page of the Transition from Activity
dialog, in the
expression text box,
enter
'2m' (complete with the single quotes) and click
OK.
This is an interval literal. For more information on interval
literals, see Time and Interval Overview in the Studio Reference.
The Reminder due transition is added. We set the interval
at two minutes so you will not have to wait long when testing this part of the
process. A reasonable reminder interval would of course be much longer, such as
one day ('1d').
- Click and drag on the Reminder due transition to curve it
towards the left.
- Right-click on the Send Reminder activity and click
Add unconditional
transition.
- Click on the Edit Report activity.
The unconditional transition is added from Send Reminder to
Edit Report.
After completing this task, your process design
diagram should look like this:
Figure 1. Expense Report process with Reminder Due transition