2. Topics
• Overview
• Workflow System
• Workflow Template Administration
• Creating/Modifying Workflow Templates
• Different Robots used in Workflow
3. Overview
• A workflow enables you to automate procedures in which information, tasks, and documents are passed among several
participants (perhaps in multiple companies). This procedure is based on a workflow process comprised of well-defined
steps designed to efficiently accomplish your business goals.
• The workflow templates define assigned or ad hoc activities in Windchill. More specifically, they can be used to accomplish
the following:
Create activities and assign them to certain roles.
Automate activities to be executed by the Windchill system using the Workflow Process Engine.
Define the flow of control for the activities.
Specify how data flows from one activity to another.
4. Workflow System
The Windchill workflow system consists of the following components:
• Workflow Template Editor - which allows you to define a workflow process and save your definition as a process template.
This graphical editor and its use are the focus of this chapter.
• workflow runtime system - which executes a defined workflow process within the context of a specific business object (for
example, a part or a document). Process execution includes delivering work assignments to users participating in the
process, opening applications (for example, automatically interacting with the Windchill Explorer to check a business object
out of the database), initiating subprocesses, and so on.
• Workflow Process Manager - a graphical tool for monitoring and reporting on workflow processes.
• Workflow History Viewer - which provides a simple ASCII interface used to access recorded workflow events, such as state
changes, data transfers, or process start.
• Workflow Process Administration utility - which provides a centralized area to manage executing workflow processes and
diagnose any warnings or errors that may occur.
5. Accessing the Workflow Template Administration Utility
You can access the Workflow Template Administration utility on the Utilities page from the Site, Organizations, Products, and
Libraries contexts. Site, organization, and application context administrators manage workflow templates, as described below:
• When accessed from the Site level, the site administrator has unrestricted access to all workflow templates in the site
context.
Site administrators create, modify, delete, and view workflow templates in the site context.
• When accessed from the Organizations level, access to the workflow templates in the site context and the templates that are
within the active organization context is available to site and organization administrators.
Organization administrators create, modify, delete, and view workflow templates in the given organization context.
Organization administrators can view workflow templates from the site context.
• The Products and Libraries level utilities provide access to the workflow templates that are in the active context, plus access
to the templates that are inherited from the organization and site contexts.
Product and library administrators create, modify, delete, and view workflow templates in their respective context. They can
view organization templates from the parent organization context and the site context.
7. Creating/modifying workflow template
We can create new or modify existing workflow template from here:
Shortcut icons used for
delete,copy,cut,align etc.
Robots, Gates & Connectors
9. Method Robot
• Method Robot include predefined actions. We can configure one of that action.
Eg: check in, check out, set state etc.
10. Assigned Activity Robot
• Assigned activity Robot is used to assigned a particular task to a particular user or group of users.
• In the property of this robot, we can specify name of the task, instructions to be shown to the user on the task page,
routing options (eg. Approve and deny), role or user to whom this task should be assigned.
12. Timer Robot
• Timer Robot is used to delay the start of node.
• Used to customize the time delays for the work item that we have mentioned by days, hours, & minutes also
13. Execute Expression Robot
• The Execute Expression robot allows you to enter a Java expression to be executed in a workflow template. The execution is
synchronous. By default, the expression returns true. A return of false indicates a problem during execution, and an
exception is thrown on the server.
• The Expression tab allows you to enter a Java expression to be executed in a workflow template.
14. Synchronize Robot
• Synchronize Robot used to synchronize the start of an activity or process node with custom events. For example, you can
set the robot to start an activity node when certain generic external or Windchill-keyed events occur.
15. URL Robot
• URL Robot used to executes a URL to communicate with another server and can initiate an operation or retrieve status
information to be collected in a string variable.
• Binary objects, such as graphics, cannot be retrieved; however, HTML links to such objects can be retrieved.
• You can use the URL robot node for purposes such as initiating various Info*Engine tasks or providing information necessary
to complete workflow tasks.
• Error conditions are handled through automatically-supplied links that route to specific error handlers.
16. Launch Application Robot
Launch Application Robot is used to execute system commands on the server. These commands are executed using the
Java runtime.exe command. The execution can be either synchronous or asynchronous.
17. Activity and Process Properties
• You can define properties at the process level and the node level. Several tabs are common between activities and the
workflow process.
General Provide a name and description for the activity or process.
Deadline Set optional deadlines for activity or process completion.
Variables Declare variables to use in workflow expressions.
Routing Declare custom routing events.
A routing event directs the workflow based on the outcome of the
preceding node.
Transition Declare custom transition expressions.
A transition is a movement from one internal state to another within a
workflow, reflecting a change in the workflow status.
19. Connectors and Router Robots
Connectors
Connector nodes determine what requirements must be met before the workflow can progress to the next node. For example,
connectors can determine whether the workflow requires that all previous nodes have been completed or only one.
• AND
The node cannot execute until all its predecessors have executed.
• OR
The node executes when any one of its predecessors has fired.
• Conditional Router
This allows you to branch the template based on a conditional expression.
• Threshold Connector
The node executes if a user-defined number of predecessor fire.
20. Workflow Version Control
• Administering workflow templates is an iterative process. Like version-controlled objects, iterated objects are checked in
and out of shared locations. However, unlike version-controlled objects, they cannot be revised. Instead, any change to an
object creates a new and separate iteration when it is checked in. Earlier iterations, which may still be in use, are
unchanged and unaffected by the new iteration. Only the latest iteration is available for new uses.
• To make changes to a workflow template, you must check out a copy. Clicking Edit on the Workflow Template
Administration page automatically checks out a copy of the selected template. While it is checked out, no one else can
check out a copy, but processes can still be initiated based on the current template. When you have completed changes to
the checked-out copy, you must save it and check it in to make it available to others. It then becomes the latest iteration.
Running processes that use an earlier iteration continue to run, unaffected by the newer iteration.
