The Workflow Engine creates a Task whenever a manual Activity Instance is executed. At the time that the Task is created:

• the Task is associated with an Event Wait which specifies the Curam event which will subsequently close the Task; and
• an allocation strategy is executed to determine the agent which will perform the task.

The agent performs the work required by the task and upon completion causes an event to be raised.

When the event is raised, the Workflow Engine reads the Event Wait table and determines which Tasks to close.

Example

You define a workflow (Process Definition) to allow correspondence to be sent to customers whenever their payment details change. The activities defined in your workflow are:

• system prints out a letter (automatic); and
• User puts the letter in an envelope and posts it (manual).

Person John Smith's payment details change due to an increase in rates. This increase raises an event which causes the Workflow Engine to enact your workflow and create a Process Instance.

The system creates and executes the first (automatic) Activity Instance which prints out the letter.

The system transitions to the next activity definition in your workflow and creates the second Activity Instance. Because this Activity Instance is a manual one, when the Workflow Engine executes the Activity Instance, it also creates a Task which details the work to be done (as defined by the activity in your Process Definition).

Based on the allocation strategy defined by the activity, the Task is assigned to User Ronan Rooney. The Task instructs Ronan to collect the letter from the printer and post it. Ronan performs this work and in the correspondence screen marks the letter as 'sent'. Curam raises an event which causes the Workflow Engine to close the Task and the Process Instance ends.

Technical Notes

See the Workflow Guide for further information.