Life Cycle Transition Definitions Tab
This section includes the fields and descriptions for the Life Cycle Transition Definitions tab.
Definition Island
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Life Cycle Definition No. | This field shows the number or name of a life cycle definition previously created in MWL. This is the life cycle to which the current life cycle transition definition is attached. Among other things, the life cycle defines which type of object the life cycle and associated transitions concern, for example, time sheets. |
| Transition No. | This field shows a distinctive number or name for the current life cycle transition. |
| Name | In this field, you can enter a descriptive name of the current transition, for example, “Approve Customer Creation.” |
| Internal Action Name | This is the name of the action associated with the current transition. The action can be either custom or built-in. For instance, in the case of a time sheet, the initial stage of “Created” can be reached by selecting “Create” in the workspace Time Sheets. Other internal actions are “Update” (occurs when a user presses the Enter key in a field), “Approve” (occurs in several workspaces when the user selects “Approve” in the Action menu), or “Delete” (when the user deletes the current object by selecting “Delete” in the Index menu). Custom actions are added to dialogs using the Maconomy extension languages MEXL and MDXL. |
| Perspective | This field shows the name of a perspective. This is not used in MWL workflows. |
| Transition Condition, Procedure | This field shows if an M-Script procedure is specified to check whether the criteria for carrying out the transition are fulfilled. For instance: if the current transition definition causes a time sheet to progress to the stage Approved, a procedure may check if the time sheet has in fact been submitted. If it has, the M-Script procedure associated with the condition is executed. |
| Before Transition, Procedure | This field shows if an M-Script procedure is specified to run when the transition is attempted. The procedure may check various criteria for the transition. If the transition is initiated by a time sheet changing its stage from “Created” to “Submitted” as in the example above, the “Before Transition” procedure might check whether the current user is in fact a supervisor or secretary to the employee whose time sheet was submitted. If these criteria fail (that is, the current user is not the supervisor or secretary of the time sheet employee), the transition name as specified in the field “Name” above (for example, “Approve Time Sheets”) is not selectable. If the criteria are fulfilled, the transition can be attempted. |
| After Transition, Procedure | This field shows if an M-Script procedure is specified to check various criteria after the transition is attempted. If the transition, for example, concerns the approval of purchase orders, an “After Transition” procedure might calculate the effect of the approval and compare with information specified for the current user. If the current user is, for example, not permitted to approve purchase orders exceeding USD 10,000, the transition will fail with an error message. In this case, the entire transition will be rolled back (undone), and no database transactions will have taken place. |
User Island
See the Getting Started topic for a description of the fields in the island User.
Life Cycle Rule Definitions Island
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Stage No. | In this field, add the name or number of a stage as defined in the workspace Life Cycle Definitions. As the name implies, a transition marks the action of a progression of an object between stages. For example, the approval of a time sheet involves a transition between (at least) two stages, for example, “Submitted” and “Approved.” A transition definition must contain at least one stage specification. |
| Direction | In this field you specify the direction of the current transition in relation to the stage specified in the field “Stage No.” A stage can be either “Incoming” or “Outgoing” in relation to the current transition. In the time sheet example above, the stage “Submitted” is “Incoming,” because the time sheet object enters the transition procedure in submitted condition. The stage “Approved” is “Outgoing,” because the object leaves the transition in approved condition.
In case of parallel processing, a transition can have multiple ingoing or outgoing stages. If a transition has only an incoming stage, then that stage is by definition the ending stage, as no further actions can be performed on the object. |