Business processes cannot always proceed in a fully automated manner. They need human interaction as a Business processes cannot always proceed in a fully automated manner. They need human interaction as a means of decision making, error handling and exception cases. For example, canceling a flight due to a strike or bankruptcy, deciding whether to accept the claim based on the requested amount etc. Human tasks provide the specification to define tasks performed by human beings.
Sample scenario
When a user requests a claim to be approved by the system, the system automatically approves claims under an amount of 1000 .This is a simple BPEL process. If the claim exceeds 1000, it will be handed over to the regional clerk who checks the claim amount along with the user information, decides whether or not to approve it, and the final decision is sent to the user. So when the claim is higher than 1000, it will be processed as a human task. The sample process is shown below.
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The BPEL process is implemented using the BPEL4PEOPLE activities and deployed into the server. Human tasks have to be deployed as a separate process. Since there is no tool to create a human task workflow, all the steps have to be done manually. However, there is a predefined package structure which makes the work easier. As an initial step, you should create a package structure in your local directoryeasier. As an initial step, you should create a package structure in your local directory.
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This topic explains how to write the human tasks yourself and describes the various configurations you can use. You can view a completed version of the human tasks configuration in the |
Package structure of an HT artifact
There are four components in the HT package.
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<htd:humanInteractions> | Contains declarations of elements from the WS- HumanTask namespace, that is <htd:logicalPeopleGroups> , <htd:tasks> and <htd:notifications> . | |||||
<htd:import> | This is used to import the appropriate WSDL files. You should correctly specify the name spaces. Example:
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<htd:logicalPeopleGroups> | This is used to specify logical people groups used in an inline human task or a people activity. The name attribute contains the name of the logical people group. The name must be unique among the names of all logical people groups defined within the
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<htd:tasks> | Specifies the human tasks used in the business process.
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<htd:task> | This is used to provide the definition of an inline human task. The name attribute specifies the name of the task. The name must be unique among the names of all tasks defined within the It also consists of the
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<htd:interface> | Specifies the port types and operations of the human task.
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<htd:peopleAssignments> | Used to assign people to process-related generic human roles.
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<htd:documentation> | Provides annotations for users.
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<htd:from> <htd:argument> | From element used to assign people for roles which have been specified in the business process. Argument element will pass values used in the people query.
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<htd:presentationElements> | Specifies the user interface for human tasks or how the user interacts with the human task.
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<htd:notifications> | Used to provide the definition of an inline notification.The name attribute specifies the name of the notification. The name must be unique among the names of all notifications defined within the
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