Route to multiple in-baskets simultaneously?

Hi there,

I'm pretty new to Infor Process Designer. We currently have a HireEmployee process flow which toward the end routes to a fingerprint in-basket, then to an orientation in-basket, then ending with routing to an HR Admin Approval in-basket.

I've been asked to explore the possibility of revising this process so it routes to both the fingerprint and orientation in-baskets simultaneously. Then once both of these are approved, it will route to the HR Admin Approval in-basket for their final approval.

Is this possible to do within a single a process? If not, are there any recommendations on how to accomplish this?

Thank you in advance for your assistance!
+Derek

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Legacy Contributor

Hi Derek,

You can assign more than one task to a user action, for example HRORIENTATION and HRFINGERPRINT.

All users who have assigned the above tasks, with the corresponding Filter Key and Filter Value, should be able to see the workunit in their inbaskets.

Then, you can decide how to proceed. For example, all users have to take the same action. There are other options, see below:

Octavio

jreese

As Derek stated you can specify multiple tasks or users to receive the item from an user action and you have four options to choose from on how to proceed. However, the scenario you outlined wanted a member from both tasks to take action before proceeding. As long as there is only one user assigned to each task you could choose the all recipients option and it will work fine. However, if you have multiple users assigned to one or both of the tasks it wouldn't be as straightforward but it could be done.

Legacy Contributor

Thank you Octavio and jreese! Your insight is much appreciated. Once we start digging into this I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks,
Derek

Legacy Contributor

I've started to implement this and have come across an issue that I'd like to get your thoughts on how to solve.

The issue is if either Fingerprints or Orientation is Rejected/Returned, we need to have the Work Unit removed from the other basket as well. If both Fingerprints or Orientation is approved, then it will go onto the next step (HR Admin Approval basket).

The way it’s working now, if Fingerprints gets Rejected/Returned, the new hire stays in the Orientation in-basket and it would need to be Rejected/Returned manually.

Is there a way for a Rejection/Return in Fingerprints to cause the new hire to be removed from the Orientation basket and vice versa?

Thanks,
Derek

jreese

What is the flow currently doing if Fingerprints or Orientation approves the request and the other area hasn't taken an action?

Legacy Contributor

Hi jreese, thanks for your question.

I would like it to wait for the other to be either approved. We currently don't have any time limits set.

I also need to decide how to process if one is approved and the other returned/rejected. If they passed Fingerprints but Orientation was returned/rejected, we wouldn't want to have them go through fingerprinting again. I'm not sure if there would be a way to handle this automatically, but if we'd have to catch it manually and approve the Fingerprints task again.

jreese

Just thinking out loud, because I have never tried this before, but what if your first user action includes both groups and requires only one action. If the action is Rejected/Returned then it is killed for all. If it is approved, query landmark to see which task performed the action. Once found assign it to another user action for just the one group that still needs to approve or reject/return the request.

Legacy Contributor

Hi Derek,

Jreese's idea is a really good one. The trick is to identify which task performed the action, because the action is actually performed by an actor rather than a task. As long as the two tasks never included the same actor you could query PfiUserTask to identify the task that the approving actor is a part of.

If you're going to do this, you'll want to be sure that you use an email node to send the action notification to both tasks prior to the first UserAction rather than using the UserAction node itself, otherwise you'll be sending another email after the first action is completed, when the request hasn't really changed for the second task.

It would take some fiddling, but it's a very interesting idea!

0905290751295332.pdf

russel-cornelson

Good afternoon Derek,
When you say must be completed within a single process, do you mean one process flow file? Or do you mean triggered from one individual record?

Because if you open up the possibility of using multiple .lpd files, you have alternative options. A parent flow can asyncronously trigger a Fingerprint flow, then a Orientation flow, then it can go sit in a user action node of it's own that is assigned to autoFingerprint(user) autoOrientation(user). The two child flows now only dealing with individual tasks can be built to handle reject/approve/etc with independent logic ... upon exiting the child flows >> Landmark transaction to take the "approve/reject" action on the overall parent.

This would be multiple .lpd files but would work nicely. Only requires creation of a couple PfiUserProfiles that would be "system" owned.

jreese

Russel,

Do you have an example of this? I'm trying to understand how this would resolve the if one task rejects kill all work units.

Legacy Contributor

Derek - attached is an example of a flow that would do as jreese suggested earlier. It's pretty rough, but should give you some ideas.

I like Russel's idea too, but I have the same question as jreese - I'm not sure how you would kill the action from a separate flow. I'm sure it's possible, but it would be a challenge.

SampleFlow_MultipleInbaskets.lpd:

russel-cornelson

The process of holding one flow in a user action, while another flow does work is also part of my IPA JobSubmit/JobWait flow that is attached in KB 1667935. It really is as simple as a single Landmark Transaction Node to take the action.

I would need more information on how you would handle a reject or a return from one of those tasks, but the theory here is if it's a hard cancel you take the cancel action on the parent when leaving the child. If you want the ability for someone to perform some other duty then "resubmit" you could individually manage each process for each task individually without interfering with the overall process.

Not the process you were looking for but these two samples use the hold a parent flow with a user action node, and have child flow that takes an action to make it proceed.

Legacy Contributor

Thank you all very much for your insightful responses. I'll take a look at these examples and see if I can get something working. I'll let you know how it goes.

0911060553270289.pdf

Legacy Contributor

Hi Russel - We had hoped to be able to make routing to two tasks in one user action node work, but to no avail. I've tried to open the pabp_jobsubmit.lpd file you attached here, but I IPA throws a error. Is it possible for you to post the file again?

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Thanks,

Derek

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