There are few final touches we want to add into the process to complete it:
System Participants
Lets add a new condition to the process flow. The new scenarios are that when either the supervisor or the HOD rejects a leave application, a rejection notice gets sent to the requestor. If the HOD approves the application, an approval notice gets sent to the requestor. After either mail is sent, the process ends. To do this, we'll need to add a System participant. System participants are used when an automated task is required that doesn't involve human interaction. Mails being sent out automatically will qualify as a task for a system participant. The biggest difference between system and regular participants are that in system participant swimlanes, tools are usually used as opposed to activities.
To add a system participant, create a new participant in your process. Double click on the participant, rename the name to System and most importantly, set the participant type to System.
Tools
Tools are similar to activities but are usually mapped to plugins rather than forms. They represent the sort of activities that will be carried out by automated tasks that require no human interaction. In our particular case, we want to add 2 new tools to the system swimlane and then map the correctly to our previous activities.
A few things to note:
1. Note the use of the otherwise transition. We could just have easily create the new transitions to carry the condition supervisorApproval=='no', etc but that won't fall in line with best practices. This way, we ensure that all eventualities are catered for or at the very least that the process execution will be get stuck midway.
2. Note also in the final decision route that the expression
| Code Block |
|---|
hodApproval=='yes'
|
will require a new workflow variable to be created. Make sure you create the necessary workflow variable in your process properties window.
Process guide
There is a Process Guide at the bottom left hand corner of your workflow designer that will analyze your process on the fly for critical or warning items. Pay attention when there are red crosses. That usually means that there are fatal errors in your workflow that will likely cause your deployment to fail.
Start and end bubbles
The last things you usually add to your process are start and end bubbles. We don't ever want our process to start from nowhere or to end abruptly so the initiating and terminating bubbles are important to mark where a process might begin or where it might end. To include start and end bubbles, you can manually place them on your process and join the transitions by hand, or simply click on the "Insert missing start and end bubbles" icon.
Process update/deployment
One thing to note is that your workflow designer can run as a client. This means you can save drafts of your processes onto your localhost and amend them at any time until you believe they are ready for production. Once such a time occurs however, access the File menu option and then select Deploy (or update if the process has previously been deployed).
