Creating a new action

Most actions you create in Object Designer when you create a relationship between a business object and the Process or Task business object. These actions each have an associated window. For more information about modifying these actions, see Actions.

Sometimes, however, you need to create a new action in Process Designer:

• If you want to create an action that has no associated window because there is no other data to capture. For example, if you have an action called Confirm Mail Sent with no associated window.
• If you want to create an action to switch from one process design to another. (For more information, see Reinitialize: switching between processes within a module.)
• If you want to update the process using a separate window for data entry that appears when a user clicks a particular action. You would choose this option only if you want to display the captured information on the main window. You would usually display such information as read-only on the main window.

You may want to capture information about a failure when the Add Failure action occurs at a specific stage of the Problem process. In this example, you first need to create the Add Failure action. Then using Window Manager, in the Process folder, you create a separate window for capturing Failure information. This window is based on attributes belonging to the Process business object. In the Properties grid, you specify the Action that makes that window appear (in this case, Add Failure). You can then display the captured information as read-only on the main Problem window. You can pre-populate these windows with static information. Static information is where you specify a specific value, for example, an assignment to the Administrators Group at a particular stage.

To create a new action:

1. In Process Designer, expand the Business Objects tree.
   
2. Expand the item for which you want to create an action.
3. Select the Action folder, then on the Actions list, click New.
   The Action property grid appears.

Alternatively, click New on the Select Action dialog that appears when you add an Action Instance to a process diagram. The Create New Action dialog appears.

4. Type the Title for the action.

You cannot use the characters & or < in the Title.

5. If you have a multilingual system, add any required Localized Titles.
6. If required, type a Description for the action.
   This text will appear as a tooltip when a user holds their mouse over the action in the Actions list.
7. In the Action Type field, select the type of action you want to create.
   Typically you will select None, but if you want to create an action to enable you to switch to a different process, select Reinitialize. (For more information about reinitialize actions, see Reinitialize: switching between processes within a module.)
8. Alongside the Allow Association With Window property, select True if you want to associate a window with the action, or select False if you do not.
   If you select True, you need to create the required window using the Window Manager, and then associate that window to this new action. For more information, see Creating a new window.
   If you select False, you can set a property called Confirmation required? for the action in the process design. If you set this property to True, a dialog asking the user to confirm the action appears at runtime in Web Access (this feature is not supported in Workspaces).
9. Click OK.
   You can now select this action in the relevant process.

If an action has the following icon: it means that you can delete it if required. If an action has the following icon , it means that you cannot delete it. This could be because it is currently in use, or has been predefined.

In addition to specifying default information for an automatic action, you can specify default information for manual actions. For example, you could pre-populate a Note window with prompts for the user to complete specific information. You do this in the same way as when you specify default information for automatic actions.