The swimlanes such as business roles are used to manage the document flow; they allow you to model situations where the executors of the tasks are not known beforehand or the executors change depending on the document. This section gives examples of how you can use the Approval and Consideration business roles.
Example 1. Approving a document using the Approval business role.
Here is a simple routing process for approving the outgoing mail (fig. 1). Depending on the message type and the company’s size, either the company director or other responsible users can approve the outgoing mail. Although the number of approvers can vary, it is not necessary to create multiple swimlanes to represent different process participants.
Fig. 1. The business process with the Approval business role.
Place the Send for Approval task in the initiator swimlane (dynamic or static); when users receive this task in Web Application they will have to select the document approver(s) and specify the approval type (fig. 2).
Fig. 2. The Send for Approval task form in the Web Application.
You can use the approval task in the Approval business role. Although you place only one approval task in the graphic model, the number of tasks created in Web Application is equal to the number of users specified in the Send for Approval task. Each of the specified users can check the document status in the Approval Sheet (fig. 3).
Fig. 3. The Approval task form in the Web Application.
Here is a routing process for the incoming mail (fig. 4). The processing of the incoming mail may involve different company employees. The initiator, responsible user and executor can change depending on the mail subject and the company size. The initiator assigns a user responsible for the incoming mail; the responsible user reads the message, makes a decision at the next steps and distributes tasks based on the decision. To graphically represent this situation, place the Make a decision about the incoming mail task in the responsible user swimlane.
Fig. 4. The business process with the Consideration business role.
You can place the Create decision based tasks in the graphic model as an individual element or enable this option in the Make decision task. To learn more, see this Help page.
In this example the Create decision based tasks is an individual element that can be placed both in static and dynamic swimlanes. When this task is assigned to the users in Web Application, they create tasks and select respective executors (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. The task form for creating decision-based tasks in the Web Application.
The Control and execute the decision based tasks activity is placed in the Consideration business role. Although you place only one such activity in the graphic model, the number of tasks created in Web Application is equal to the number of tasks specified in the Make a decision task or Create decision based tasks.
