To support the manual and automatic creation of milestones within a service plan, it is necessary to set up an association between a milestone configuration and the service plan type. There are two options for setting up these associations: either a new milestone configuration can be recorded at the same time it is associated with the service plan or an existing milestone configuration can be selected.
When recording a new milestone configuration as part of the association process, the milestone configuration information (as described in Milestone Configurations) must be defined. Additional association information can also be defined if the milestone is to be created automatically. The two main configuration settings for automatically created milestones are the creation event and the completion event. These events are used by the application to automatically create and complete an instance of the milestone.
For example, a milestone can be set up to track the life cycle of a service plan from approval through closure. To set up the automatic creation of this milestone, the Approve Plan event can be selected as the creation event and the Close Plan event can be selected as the completion event. When a service plan is approved in the application, the Approve Plan event will trigger an instance of the milestone. Later when the service plan is closed, the Close Plan event will close the milestone instance.
The matching process for creating milestones within a service plan can be further specified using the component type and component category settings. A clear distinction can be made between creation and completion events at the service plan level and at the service plan component level. For example, the service plan component, Plan Item, can be set, with a creation event of Approve Plan Item and a completion event of Close Plan Item.
When a plan item is approved within a service plan, the Approve Plan Item event will trigger an instance of the milestone and the application will associate both the Plan Item ID and the Service Plan ID with it. Later when the plan item is closed, the Close Plan Item event will use both of these IDs to find and close the correct milestone instance.