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Following is a description of each activity listed by the activity's display name. You can create all the components for an activity in the graphical Oracle Workflow Builder except for the PL/SQL stored procedures that the function activities call. Function activities can execute functions external to the database by integration with Oracle Advanced Queuing or execute PL/SQL stored procedures which you must create and store in the Oracle Database. All the function activities in the Requisition process execute PL/SQL stored procedures. The naming convention for the PL/SQL stored procedures used in the Requisition process is:

WF_REQDEMO.<PROCEDURE>

WF_REQDEMO is the name of the package that groups all the procedures used by the Requisition process. <PROCEDURE> represents the name of the procedure.

Several activities are described in greater depth to give you an idea of how they are constructed. See: Example Function Activities and Example Notification Activities.

Start (Node 1)

This is a Standard function activity that simply marks the start of the process.

Select Approver (Node 2)

This function activity determines who the next approver is for the requisition by checking the employee approval hierarchy table. This activity also saves the name of the previous approver or the name of the preparer if the requisition was never approved before. If an approver is found, this procedure returns a value of 'T', for True, otherwise it returns a value of 'F' for False.

Notify Requestor No Approver Available (Node 3)

This activity notifies the requisition preparer that no appropriate approver could be found for the requisition. The message includes 'Send' attributes that display the requisition number, requisition description, requisition amount, and who the last approver was, if there was any. The message also includes a 'Send' attribute for the from role that sent the notification, to be displayed in the notification header.

This activity occurs in process node 3. If you display the property page of the node, you see that the activity is assigned to a performer whose name is stored in an item type attribute named Requestor Username.

Notify Requestor of Forward (Node 5)

This activity notifies the requisition preparer that the requisition was forwarded for approval. The message includes 'Send' attributes that display the requisition number, requisition description, requisition amount, name of the approver that the requisition is forwarded to, name of the previous approver, if any, and the most recent comments appended to the requisition. The message also includes a 'Send' attribute for the from role that sent the notification, to be displayed in the notification header.

If you display the property page of this node, you see that the activity is assigned to a performer whose name is stored in an item type attribute named Requestor Username.

Record Requisition Forward (Node 6)

Currently this activity does nothing. It represents a point in the process where you can integrate a recording function. If you have a Purchasing/Requisition application into which you want to integrate this workflow, you can customize this activity to execute a PL/SQL stored procedure that updates your purchasing/requisition application table to indicate that the requisition is being forwarded to the next approver.

And (Node 7)

This Standard function activity merges two or more parallel branches in the flow only when the activities in all of those branches complete.

Notify Approver (Node 8)

This activity is a subprocess that notifies the approver that an action needs to be taken to either approve or reject the requisition. To view the subprocess, double-click on Notify Approver under the Processes branch in the navigator tree. The subprocess sends a notification to the approver and if the approver does not respond within a specified time, sends another reminder notification to the approver to take action. See: Summary of the Notify Approver Subprocess.

Reject Requisition (Node 9)

Currently this activity does nothing. It represents a point in the process where you can integrate a function. If you have a Purchasing/Requisition application into which you want to integrate this workflow, you can customize this activity to execute a PL/SQL stored procedure that updates your purchasing/requisition application table to indicate that the requisition is rejected.

Notify Requestor of Rejection (Node 10)

This activity notifies the requisition preparer that the requisition was rejected. The message includes 'Send' attributes that display the requisition number, requisition description, requisition amount, name of the manager that rejected the requisition, and comments from that manager. The message also includes a 'Send' attribute for the from role that sent the notification, to be displayed in the notification header.

If you display the property page of this activity node, you see that the activity is assigned to a performer whose name is stored in an item type attribute named Requestor Username.

Verify Authority (Node 12)

This function activity verifies whether the current approver has sufficient authority to approve the requisition. The procedure compares the requisition amount with the approver's approval limit amount and returns a value of 'Y' for Yes or 'N' for No. If your business rules are not sensitive to the amount that an approver can approve, then you can remove this activity to customize the process.

Approve Requisition (Node 13)

Currently this activity does nothing. It represents a point in the process where you can integrate a function. If you have a Purchasing/Requisition application into which you want to integrate this workflow, you can customize this activity to execute a PL/SQL stored procedure that updates your purchasing/requisition application table to indicate that the requisition is approved.

Notify Requestor of Approval (Node 14)

This activity notifies the requisition preparer that the requisition was approved. The message includes 'Send' attributes that display the requisition number, requisition description, requisition amount, approver name, and comments from the approver. The message also includes a 'Send' attribute for the from role that sent the notification, to be displayed in the notification header.

If you display the property page of the activity node, you see that the activity is assigned to a performer whose name is stored in an item type attribute named Requestor Username.

End (Nodes 4, 11, and 15)

This function activity marks the end of the process. Although the activity itself does not have a result type, each node of this activity in the process must have a process result assigned to it. The process result is assigned in the property page of the activity node. Since the Requisition process activity has a result type of Approval, each End activity node must have a process result matching one of the lookup codes in the Approval lookup type.

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