CMMN question(discretionary/manual activation)

Camunda 7 Topics Discussion & Questions
1

Hi,

I read that discretionary tasks in CMMN are not supported by the engine. Supposing that there are a lot of tasks in my case which might or might not apply to future users, is the only viable substitution to add normal plan items with manual activation with autocomplete on? Or something close to this. Thanks for any help/advice.

kind regards,

T

2

Anyone have any ideas?

3

You can use an entry criterion where you can specify conditions under which a plan item becomes enabled. Whether or not it should also have a manual activation rule is a different question.

Cheers,
Stefan

4

Hi @kingspallett,

from my pragmatic view, discretionary and manual activated tasks are the same.

Cheers, Ingo

5

Thanks for your replies @Ingo_Richtsmeier @stefanzilske

That’s what I was thinking as well @Ingo_Richtsmeier.

The point is @stefanzilske that my case should apply for different kinds of users which might not have any interest in certain tasks without there being any specific entry criteria why they do or do not want these tasks besides their own preference or criteria which cant be easily defined in BPMN/CMMN. This means that I’d like them to be able to do all tasks but also to go through and complete the case successfully without having to do all the tasks. Depending on which tasks they choose there will be a different flow through the case.

So by making some plan items manual activated the case could still complete(I think) with autocomplete because a case can complete with tasks being in an available state but not required.

6

Hi,
I like this discussion. I think it touches on the essence of what constitutes a knowledge worker and why CMMN is such a powerful paradigm going forward. CMMN provides the guard rails whilst giving the knowledge worker the discretion to guide the execution as appropriate.

With the level of automation available today, I advocate that BPMN is the new straight through processing. If human interaction is required, its typically for knowledge workers to resolve the more complex situations. Thus manual activation is appropriate…

regards

Rob

7

Hi @Webcyberrob,

I couldn’t agree more. More complex business processes might not easily be captured in BPMN. A CMMN case which contains user plan items, process plan items and decision plan items can however guide a user through a ‘difficult’ process with the desired level of automation.

regards,

T