To support the manual and automatic creation of milestones within a case, it is necessary to set up an association between a milestone configuration and the case type (product delivery, integrated case, or screening 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 case type or an existing milestone configuration can be selected.
When recording a new milestone configuration as part of the association process, the milestone configuration information 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 approval of a product delivery case. To set up the automatic creation of this milestone, the Submit Case event can be selected as the creation event and the Approve Case event can be selected as the completion event. When a case is submitted for approval, the Submit Case event will trigger an instance of the milestone. Later when the case is approved, the Approve Case event will close the milestone instance.
The matching process for creating milestones within a case 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 case level and at the case component level. For example, the case component, Contract, can be set, with a creation event of Create Contract and a completion event of Close Contract.
When a contract is created, the Create Contract event will trigger an instance of the milestone and the application will associate both the contract ID and the case ID with it. Later when the contract is closed, the Close Contract event will use both of these IDs to find and close the correct milestone instance.