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Versioning and Dates of Effectivity

Oracle Workflow Builder also supports the concept of saving and loading process definitions according to an effective date. For example, you can load a definition into Oracle Workflow Builder that was effective at an earlier point in time. You can also save a definition to the database to be effective at some point in the future.

Note that Oracle Workflow Builder does not maintain version information for objects such as item types, item type attributes, messages and lookup types. For these objects, their latest definition always apply, so you should always consider whether a change to any of these objects is backwards compatible. If the modification affects existing processes, you should create a new object rather than edit the existing object.

Using the Edit Button in a Property Page

For example, if you create a notification activity, you must specify a Result Type for the activity. The value you enter can be <None> or any lookup type that is loaded in your current data store. These lookup types are presented to you in a poplist in the Result Type field. If you select a lookup type, you can then choose the Edit button next to the Result Type field to display the property page for that lookup type. When you finish viewing or editing the property page for that lookup type, you can choose OK or Cancel to return to the notification activity property page.

   To create or modify a process definition:

1. To start Oracle Workflow Builder, double-click on the Oracle Workflow Builder icon in the Oracle for Windows NT or Oracle for Windows 95 program group. If you are using Windows 95 or NT 4.0, you can also select the Oracle Workflow Builder icon from the appropriate program folder from the Start menu.

2. Choose New from the File menu to create a workspace for your new process definition or open a connection to the database or file that contains the process definition you want to modify.

3. Create a new item type or select and expand the item type associated with the process definition you want to modify.

Create an item type that classifies the work item to be managed by the process. You can also define item type attributes to fully describe your item and have the activities in your process refer to these attributes for information about the item. See: To Define an Item Type or Activity Attribute.

4. Create new lookup types.

Before you define an activity, define the lookup type that represents your activity's Result Type. After defining a lookup type and an activity, you can drag the lookup onto an activity in the navigator tree to assign that lookup as the activity's result type. Lookup types can also be referenced by item type, activity, or message attributes.

5. Create new messages.

Before you define a notification activity, create the message that you want the notification activity to send. You can drag a new message onto a notification activity in the navigator tree to assign the message to that activity. See: To Define a Message Attribute.

6. Create a new process activity, notification activity or function activity.

You need to define at least one process activity that represents your high level process diagram. The process diagram establishes the relationship of all the activities in your process. See: Activities and To Define an Item Type or Activity Attribute.

7. Diagram the process.

Display the Process window for your process activity to diagram the activities and transitions that define your workflow process. You can drag activities from the navigator tree into the Process window.

8. In a database accessible by your Oracle Workflow server, create the PL/SQL stored procedures called by your function activities. You can do this through SQL*PLUS or the Oracle Procedure Builder. See: Workflow APIs.