A Parallel Activity in a Workflow Process Definition allows a workflow to perform the same step on multiple data items in parallel. The data items are obtained from the Parallel List WDO and one Activity Instance is created for each item in the list. The Parallel Activity Occurrence record tracks which item in the list is associated with each Activity Instance.

Example

Your department is experiencing a significant amount of claim fraud, where clients are boosting their eligibility by claiming to have more dependents than they actually do. You define a workflow (Process Definition) to check the details for all dependents listed on claim forms. The checks are time-consuming and you want to process claims quickly, so you simultaneously assign each dependent to an individual case worker for investigation (modeled as a Parallel Manual activity).

Person John Smith submits a claim form, indicating that he has three dependents. This causes your workflow to be enacted, creating a Process Instance and supplying the list of dependents as 'enactment data'.

The system transitions to the first Activity definition in your workflow. The Workflow Engine detects that this is a Parallel Manual Activity and divides up the list of dependents - creating one Activity Instance for each dependent in the list.

It also creates a Parallel Activity Occurrence record for each Activity Instance, relating that instance to the dependent it will be processing. Specifically, it records the position of that dependent in the supplied dependents list).

The Workflow Engine creates Tasks for each of the Activity Instances, separately allocating those Tasks to independent caseworkers. The Workflow Engine uses the Parallel Activity Occurrence information to populate each Task with the correct details for the respective dependent.

Technical Notes

See the Workflow Reference Guide for further information.