Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide

Accessing the Standalone Oracle Workflow Home Page

Use the standalone Oracle Workflow home page to link to all of Oracle Workflow's Web-based features. This page centralizes your access to the features so you do not have to remember individual URLs.

Note: If Oracle Internet Directory/Single Sign-On integration has been implemented for your installation of Oracle Workflow, you can use single sign-on when accessing Oracle Workflow's Web-based features. With single sign-on, a user who is logged into any participating component is automatically authenticated when accessing any other participating component and does not need to log in again. See: Synchronizing Workflow Directory Services with Oracle Internet Directory.

Note: For information about the administrator home page in Oracle Applications, see: Accessing the Oracle Workflow Administrator Home Page.

To Access the Oracle Workflow Home Page

Use a Web browser to connect to the URL for the home page:
```
<webagent>/wfa_html.home
```
<webagent> represents the base URL of the Web agent configured for Oracle Workflow in your Web server. See: Setting Global User Preferences.

Attention: This is a secured page, so if you have not yet logged on as a valid user in the current Web session, you will be prompted to do so before the page appears.
A toolbar appears in the upper left corner of the Oracle Workflow home page, as well as on every other Oracle Workflow Web page. The Home icon returns you to the Oracle Workflow home page. The name of the current page appears in the middle of the toolbar. The Logout icon logs you out of your current Oracle Workflow Web session and the Help icon displays online help for the current screen. Some of the Event Manager Web pages also include a Query icon that lets you enter query details to search for Event Manager objects.
Choose the Worklist link to display your list of workflow notifications. You can close or reassign your notifications directly from the Worklist or you can drill down to the details of each specific notification and close, reassign, or respond to them individually. See: To View Notifications from the Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
Choose the Find Notifications link to locate notifications that match specific criteria and act on those notifications. See: To Find Notifications, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
Choose the Notification Rules link to view and define your automatic notification routing rules. If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, the Find Automatic Notification Processing Rules Web page appears, letting you first display the routing rules for the role you specify. See: To Define a Rule for Automatic Notification Routing, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
Choose the Find Processes link to query for a list of workflow process instances that match certain search criteria. Once you find a specific process instance, you can view its status details in the Workflow Monitor. See: Using the Find Processes Web Page.
Choose the User Preferences link to set the preferences that control how you interact with Oracle Workflow. See: Setting User Preferences, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Global Preferences link to set global preferences that control how users interact with Oracle Workflow. See: Setting Global User Preferences.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, the Document Nodes link appears. This functionality is reserved for future use. You do not need to perform any actions with this link.
Choose the Item Type Definition link to access the Find Item Type Web page. Use the Find Item Type Web page to query for a specific item type definition to display in the Item Type Definition page. See: Item Type Definition Page, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Launch Processes link to test a specific workflow process definition. See: Testing Workflow Definitions, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Demonstration Page link to access the Demonstration home page. You can use the Demonstration home page to launch any of the demonstration workflow processes provided with Oracle Workflow. See: Sample Workflow Processes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Events link to view and define Business Event System events. See: To Define an Event, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Find Event/Group link to query for events and event groups that match certain search criteria. See: To Find Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Systems link to view and define Business Event System systems. See: To Define a System, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Find System link to query for systems that match certain search criteria. See: To Find Systems, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Agents link to view and define Business Event System agents. See: To Define an Agent, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Find Agent link to query for agents that match certain search criteria. See: To Find Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Event Subscriptions link to view and define Business Event System subscriptions. See: To Define an Event Subscription, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Find Subscription link to query for subscriptions that match certain search criteria. See: To Find Event Subscriptions, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the Raise Event link to raise a business event to the Event Manager. See: Raising Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the System Signup link to sign up one system with another to receive business events. See: Signing Up Systems, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
If you are logged in as a role with workflow administrator privileges, you can choose the System Identifier link to retrieve the system identifier information required for signing up systems. See: To Retrieve System Identifier Information, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Accessing the Oracle Workflow Administrator Home Page for Oracle Applications

Use the Oracle Workflow administrator home page to link to Oracle Workflow's Web-based administration features in Oracle Applications. This page centralizes your access to the features.

Note: Oracle Applications Framework Personalization provides the ability to customize Oracle self-service Web application pages. If you are logged in as a user or with a responsibility for which the Personalize Self-Service Defn profile option is set to Yes, you can choose the Personalize button or Personalize Region links to create your personalizations. For more information, please refer to OracleMetaLink note 268969.1, Oracle Applications Framework Personalization Guide.

Note: For information about the standalone Oracle Workflow home page, see: Accessing the Standalone Oracle Workflow Home Page.

To Access the Oracle Workflow Administrator Home Page

Use a Web browser to navigate to the administrator home page, using a responsibility and navigation path specified by your system administrator. See: Oracle Workflow Administrator Navigation Paths.
To set your Oracle E-Business Suite general preferences, including language and notification preferences, select the Preferences button. See: Set Preferences, Oracle Applications User's Guide.
The Notifications at a Glance region of the home page lists your five highest priority notifications, ordered by priority and then by date.
- To view and respond to a notification, select the notification subject link in the Subject column. See: To View the Details of a Notification, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
- To view the complete list of all your notifications in the Advanced Worklist, select the Full List button. See: To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
- To define vacation rules for yourself, select the Vacation Rules link. See: To View and Maintain Vacation Rules, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
- To grant access to your worklist to another user, select the Worklist Access link. See: To Grant Access to Your Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
- To view another user's worklist, select the Switch User button, and then select the user you want. This button appears only if you have been granted access to another user's worklist.
To view workflow definitions and run test workflow processes, choose the Developer Studio tab. See: Testing Workflow Definitions Using the Developer Studio, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
To manage Business Event System events, subscriptions, systems, and agents, choose the Business Events tab. See: Event Manager for Oracle Applications, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
To view the administrator version of the Status Monitor, choose the Status Monitor tab. See: Accessing the Administrator Monitor.
To view notifications in the Worklist, choose the Notifications tab. See: To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
To set global workflow preferences, choose the Administration tab, and choose Workflow Preferences in the horizontal navigation. See: Setting Global User Preferences.
To define vacation rules that automatically handle notifications in a user's absence, choose the Administration tab, and choose Vacation Rules in the horizontal navigation. See: Defining Vacation Rules for Users in Oracle Applications.
To access notifications belonging to another user, choose the Administration tab, and choose Notification Search in the horizontal navigation. See: Searching for Users' Notifications in Oracle Applications.

Defining Vacation Rules for Users in Oracle Applications

Use vacation rules to handle notifications automatically when users are not available to manage their notifications directly, such as when they are on vacation. You can define rules to perform the following actions automatically when a notification arrives:

Reassign the notification to another user

Note: A workflow may include special logic to restrict reassignment of notifications. If so, Oracle Workflow does not apply any vacation rules to reassign those notifications, but simpy delivers the notifications to the worklist of the original recipient. See: #HIDE_REASSIGN Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
Respond to the notification with a predefined response, or close a notification that does not require a response
Deliver the notification to the original recipient's worklist as usual, with no further action

Use the Vacation Rules administrator page to define rules for automatic notification processing for your users. Each rule is specific to a role.

Note: You must have workflow administrator privileges to define vacation rules for other users in the Vacation Rules page. Workflow administrator privileges are assigned in the Workflow Configuration page. See: Setting Global User Preferences.

A vacation rule can apply to messages of all item types, to all messages belonging to a specific item type, or to a specific type of message belonging to a specific item type. Each time a notification is sent to a user, Oracle Workflow tests the notification against that user's vacation rules. First Oracle Workflow checks whether the user has any active rules for that specific message type. If not, it checks whether the user has any active rules for that specific item type. Finally, it checks whether the user has any active rules for messages of all item types. As soon as it finds a match, Oracle Workflow applies the rule and discontinues any further rule matching.

If a rule reassigns a notification, Oracle Workflow performs rule matching again against the new recipient role's list of rules. Oracle Workflow maintains a count of the number of times it forwards a notification to detect perpetual forwarding cycles. If a notification is automatically forwarded more than ten times, Oracle Workflow assumes that a forwarding cycle has occurred and ceases executing any further forwarding rules, marking the notification as being in error.

To define vacation rules for a user

Navigate to the Vacation Rules page by choosing the Administration tab in the Oracle Workflow administrator Web pages and choosing Vacation Rules in the horizontal navigation.
Search for the role for which you want to define vacation rules.

The list of existing rules for the selected role includes rules defined by the individual user as well as rules defined by an administrator for that user. A rule's active or inactive status depends on whether the current date falls within the rule's effective dates.
To update a rule, select the Update icon for that rule. See: To Create or Update a Vacation Rule, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.
To delete a rule, select the Delete icon for that rule.
To create a new rule, select the Create Rule button. See: To Create or Update a Vacation Rule, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Related Topics

Vacation Rules, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Setting Up Vacation Rule Options.

Searching for Users' Notifications in Oracle Applications

Use the Notifications administrator page to search for and access notifications sent to your users.

Note: You must have workflow administrator privileges to access other users' notifications in the Notifications page. If you do not have administrator privileges, you can only search for and access your own notifications. Workflow administrator privileges are assigned in the Workflow Configuration page. See: Setting Global User Preferences.

To search for notifications

Navigate to the Notifications page by choosing the Administration tab in the Oracle Workflow administrator Web pages and choosing Notification Search in the horizontal navigation.
Search for the notifications you want to access. The following search criteria are available only if you have workflow administrator privileges:
- Notification ID - Enter the numerical notification ID for a specific notification. Note that if you specify a notification ID, all other search criteria are ignored.
- Owner - Select the role that owns the notifications.
- To - Select the role to which the notifications were sent.
Note: Usually, the Owner role and the To role for a notification are the same. However, you can specify different roles in the Owner field and the To field to search for notifications that were reassigned in Delegate mode. See: Setting the WF: Notification Reassign Mode Profile Option.

The following search criteria are always available:
- From - Select the role from which the notifications were sent. The From role for a notification is determined by the #FROM_ROLE message attribute. See: #FROM_ROLE Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
- Status - Select the status of the notifications. You can search for notifications that are open, closed, or canceled, or to which an invalid reply was submitted, or choose All to display notifications in any status.
- Workflow Type - Select the workflow item type to which the notifications belong. The display name for the workflow type you select populates the Workflow Type field, and the internal name for the workflow type you select populates the Type Internal Name field.
- Type Internal Name - Enter the internal name of the workflow type to which the notifications belong, if you want to enter the internal name directly instead of selecting a value.
- Subject - Enter the subject line of the notifications. This field is case-sensitive. You can use the percent sign (%) as a wildcard character.
- Sent - Choose Today, This Week (last seven days), Last 2 Weeks (last fourteen days), Last 30 Days, Last 60 Days, or Any Time to specify when the notifications were sent. All the sent date ranges include the current date; for example, Last 2 Weeks includes today as well as the previous thirteen days.
- Due Date - Choose Last 2 Weeks (last fourteen days), This Week (last seven days), Today, Next 2 Weeks (next fourteen days), Next 30 Days, Next 60 Days, or Any Time to specify when the notifications should be completed. All the due date ranges include the current date; for example, Next 2 Weeks includes today as well as the next thirteen days.
- Priority - Select High, Normal, or Low as the notification priority, or choose All to display notifications of any priority.
Note: If you have workflow administrator privileges, you must enter at least one of the following criteria when you search in order to limit the size of the results list.
- Notification ID
- Owner
- To
- From
To view and respond to a notification, select the notification subject link in the Subject column. See: To View the Details of a Notification, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Note: If you take action on another user's notification, such as responding to, reassigning, or closing the notification or requesting more information, then Oracle Workflow updates the notification's action history to show that you performed that action.