About steps
A step is a stage in a workflow where a distinct, well-defined kind of
work is performed. Each step on a workflow map represents a specific activity
or task in the business process you are defining.

Process Designer provides
palettes of pre-defined steps in the Step Palette area that you add to the workflow map to represent
different types of activities. Each type of step provides an appropriate interface where you define the parameters for processing that step.
Your IBM FileNet license agreement determines the level of functionality that you see in Process Designer. As a consequence, some of the options described here might not be available for your system. See your system administrator for more information.
Your system might have custom palettes supplied with expansion products, such as FileNet Web Site Manager.
- The BPM palette contains basic steps you can use for most workflows.
- Activity Step - for general workflow activities that will be processed by a participant or sent to a work queue for processing by one of a pool of participants or by an automated process. See About activity steps.
- Submap Step - to call another workflow map in the current workflow
definition. See About workflow maps.
- System Step - to specify one or more built-in system functions that perform
logic-control and other functionality in the workflow, such as setting
time limits for specific activities in the workflow. See About system functions.
Note that the system functions accessible in the system step are identical with the system functions on the General System palette, Timer palette, Checkpoint palette, and Web Services palette. The System step allows you to combine multiple system functions into one step.
- Component Step - to execute operations in an external program
as part of the workflow. See About component steps.
- The General System palette contains steps for miscellaneous system functions (Assign, Create, DbExecute, Delay, Log, Return, TerminateBranch, TerminateProcess, WaitForCondition) that can be used at any point in the workflow. See About system functions.
- The Timer palette contains steps for timer system functions (BeginTimer, SuspendTimer, ResumeTimer,
EndTimer, EndAllTimers) to specify processing time limits for a series of steps. See About setting a time limit for processing.
- The Checkpoint palette contains steps for checkpoint system functions (BeginCheckpoint, RollbackCheckpoint, EndCheckpoint) to roll back work item data field values to the values held
at a previous point in processing and, if necessary, resume work item processing at that previous
point. See About checkpoint processing.
- The Web Services palette contains steps for Web Services system functions (Invoke, Receive, Reply) to specify where the workflow will either invoke a service provided by others, or receive and reply to Web Services requests. See Web Service system functions.
There are two types of steps that Process Designer
automatically adds to a map when necessary. These steps are not on any step palette.
- Launch step, which is the first step in the workflow. This step is created automatically
on the main map and cannot be removed.
- Start step, which is the first step on any submap. Execution
of the submap starts at this step. The start step acts as an activity
step by default (you can specify a participant, and so on), but you
can change it to another type of step if that is appropriate for
your workflow design.
In defining a workflow, you drag a step of the appropriate type from a step
palette, and position the step wherever you like on a workflow map. See Add
a step for additional information. You can reposition one or more steps,
and their connected routes by dragging them. You can also change one type of
step to another (for example, change an activity step to a submap step) by right-clicking
on the step, and selecting Change Step Type
from the menu.
In additional to FileNet-provided step palettes, you can also define your own custom palette, My Palette, to include any steps you want either from other palettes or from a workflow map. See Step Palette for additional information.