Condition Editor (SAP Library - Roles in Workflow)

Condition Editor

Use

The subsequent flow of a workflow depends at various points on a condition. The evaluation of a condition always returns either the result true or the result false.

You formulate the condition with the condition editor.

Step type that uses the condition editor
Condition	The result of the evaluation decides which of two modeled branches the workflow processes.
Loop (UNTIL)	The result of the evaluation decides whether the loop is processed again or not.
Fork	The result of the evaluation decides whether parallel processing is ended, even if the number of necessary branches is not yet reached.

Prerequisites

You are editing a step type that requires a condition. You start the condition editor by double-clicking in the condition table.

Features

There are two modes for working with the condition editor, which differ only in the display and the way you select expressions and operators. To change modes, you select . The following modes are available for display:

Direct text entry

You can select the expressions and operators for constructing the condition using the F4 input help.

Mouse-oriented

The screen of the mouse-oriented condition editor is divided into the following areas:

Editing

The current condition is displayed and can be edited here. Every condition has the general form:

[<Not>] <Expression> <Operator> <Expression> [<And/Or>
<Not> <Expression> <Operator> <Expression> …]

Expression

Here you will find the following input options for expressions.

System fields
Container elements of the workflow container

You can also access the fields of the referenced structure or the attributes of the referenced object via a container element.

Operators

The operators available are displayed here. When an operator is chosen, it is inserted into the current line of the condition and replaces an operator that is already there.

Operator	Meaning	Remarks
	Equals
	Does not equal
	Less than
	Less than or equal to
	Greater than
	Greater than or equal to
	Contains pattern	c1 matches pattern c2 Ordinary characters and wildcard characters can be entered in pattern c2. "*" denotes a character string and "+" denotes a character.
	Contains no pattern	c1 does not match c2 "c1 NP c2" is equivalent to "NOT (c1 CP c2)"
CE	Table contains element	c1 contains c2 The multiline element (multiline expression) c1 contains c2.
NE	Table does not contain element	c1 does not contain c2 The multiline element (multiline expression) c1 does not contain c2.
EX	Object/element exists	Element exists in container or referenced element exists - expression2 is not required
NX	Object/element does not exist	Element does not exist in container or referenced element does not exist - expression 2 is not required

Logical operators

Operator	Meaning	Remarks
AND	And
OR	Or
NOT	Not	The whole condition line is evaluated and the result negated.

NOT is stronger than AND, and AND is stronger than OR.

A condition of the form A OR B AND C OR D is equivalent to A OR (B AND C) OR D

Constants

You can enter a constant in this input field for expression 2. The format of the constant entered depends on expression 1.

Parentheses

You can structure the condition by using parentheses and activate the display of the contents of the parentheses selectively.

The mouse-oriented mode requires a 32-bit platform.

Activities

Editing conditions

The description below applies to operation in mouse-oriented mode.

The expression you can enter or change is selected using . To create or edit a condition, you first select the relevant expression field in the condition by double-clicking and then define the content.

Usually at least one of the two expressions refers to a container element of the workflow container.

If you choose an operator or a logical operator, it is transferred automatically into the line in which the selection is located. If you delete a condition line, the logical operators AND and OR of the previous line are also deleted. If you select a NOT operator that already exists in a line again, it is deleted.

Using parentheses and comments

To insert parentheses into an existing condition, you select the condition lines around which parentheses are to be inserted and choose (¼).

You can change the comment for parentheses . Note that this text is not translated.

Expanding or collapsing parentheses

You can display or hide the contents of all or individual pairs of parentheses. The position of the cursor has the following effects:

In the input field outside all parentheses: All parentheses are affected
Inside parentheses or in a line with parentheses: One pair of parentheses is affected

To hide the content of parentheses you select (¼) and to display it (¼).

Syntax check

To check the condition for syntax errors, you select .

Testing conditions

You can test your condition at definition time.

Test data

You create the test data required as follows:

Use real data from a work item container. To do this, choose Retrieve test data for work item in the context menu.

Enter the values directly. To do this, choose Enter test data directly in the context menu.

Testing

Choose Evaluate condition with test data in the context menu.

After the test you can use Test analysis to see how the test result arose, and Display test messages to display the test messages again.