Introduction
Since IBM Business Automation Workflow 25.0.0, you can bring more flexibility to your end users when they search for tasks and process instances. It is possible to expose task business data variables in work environments similar to business data variables declared at the process instance level. These task business data variables can then be used when building searches for tasks and process instances.
Note: enabling the indexing of process-related data in the Federated Data Repository (FDR) is required to leverage task business data variables in your searches. When using containers, it is as simple as enabling full text search capability.
Exposing a task business data variable in Web Process Designer
In Web Process Designer, you can expose variables defined in client-side human services. As an example below, we have the variable "SubStatus" which can take one of the following values “To do”, “In Progress”, “Reviewing” and “Completed” in order to reflect the user's progress on the task:
For performance, when the client-side human service is run, the value of the exposed task business data variables will be updated in the FDR and available to search only if the “Save execution context for task implementation” checkbox is set in the configuration of the transitions between the elements:
Leverage task business data in Workplace
In Workplace you can now use task business data similar to process business data.
When customizing your view, you can select task business data to be shown:
The selected business data will then show in your task list:
If you want to filter on tasks where Sub Status is set to Reviewing or In Progress, you can create a filter like:
And then the list will be refreshed accordingly:
Leverage task business data when using the advanced search REST API
With the advanced search REST APIs, you can leverage the task business data in searches from your own user interface.
The advanced search REST APIs are documented here:
Conclusion
The support of task business data in searches from Workplace and the advanced search REST APIs enables users to effectively retrieve task and process instances for their work.