The runtime system of SAP Business Workflow supports advancing through work items with immediate dialog as standard.

Advancing with immediate dialog means that when the current agent of a work item in the workflow has executed this work item, the method of the next work item is presented to them directly in dialog provided they are one of the recipients of the next work item. The runtime system behaving in this way means that a user does not have to "detour" via the workflow inbox of the Business Workplace, which would first have to be refreshed, in order to reserve or execute the relevant work item.

The runtime system behaving in this way also, however, means that a work item is no longer offered to all recipients for processing in the status ready, since the first agent in such a chain of work items automatically becomes the current agent of the next work items.

If Advance with immediate dialog is activated, the method for the first work item appears immediately when a workflow is started in dialog. The initiator of the workflow must, of course, be one of the recipients of this work item.

The following conditions must be met:

At runtime, when a step has been completed (= work item has status completed), the system checks whether the next work item can be started immediately with dialog and whether the actual agent is also a recipient of the next work item.

If this is the case, the work item is reserved for the agent as soon as it is created and the relevant object method is executed.

This procedure continues until more than one work item or no work items are created that can be executed immediately by the actual agent. More than one can occur when forks are used, for example. A user can also leave the "chain" by canceling execution of the method.

You activate or deactivate advance with immediate dialog in the basic data of a workflow definition. This setting then refers to advancing for all steps in the workflows relating to this definition. The first time the Workflow Builder is called, advance with immediate dialog is always activated.

You can also activate or deactivate advance with immediate dialog within the definition of an activity in a workflow definition. This setting then refers only to advancing from the preceding step to this step.