Maintenance of Wait Steps (SAP Library - WebFlow Engine (BC-BMT-WFM))

Maintenance of Wait Steps

Purpose

The following shows possible uses of a wait step in a workflow definition:

To suspend the entire execution of the workflow until a defined event has occurred.

Example

A workflow is waiting for requested documents to be provided for a particular applicant activity.

Once the requested documents are received in the company, the transaction used for inbound processing and archiving creates an event which the wait step has been waiting for as a receiver.

To wait for an event in a parallel processing branch, which renders processing in the other branches unnecessary.

Note

The event waited for should not be created in the other branches of the fork.

Wait for the result or a message from another workflow that was started in another system by the WebFlow function.
Wait for a message of the process that this workflow started using a Wf-XML message.

In the workflow definition a wait step is represented with the symbol .

Process Flow

The maintenance of a wait step is spread across several tab pages. You can process the properties of the wait step here, for example:

Event to be waited for.
How often the event must occur
Missed deadlines
Outcomes

The order of the tab pages defines the recommended sequence of processing.

Note

On the tab page Control, you can make all the entries required to define an executable wait step.

Result

The system inserts a step of the type wait step into the workflow definition. To ensure the consistency of the workflow definition, all active outcomes are inserted with the actual step. The system adds a branch to the workflow definition for each outcome. To ensure the consistency of the block structure, all branches created are brought together before the next step of the workflow definition.

At runtime, a wait step is represented by a wait step work item.

Note

Wait step work items are not displayed in the Business Workplace but can be found using the work item selection.

The tab page Change data displays when the step was last changed, and by whom.