Adding an activity to a business process

Activities are the individual business tasks within the process that compose the larger business goal.

Once you've created a new process, you are ready to create the activities that will execute the task to be performed by that process. To add an activity, proceed as follows:

  1. In the palette, click an activity's icon.
  2. Drag the cursor out over the canvas. You will notice that the icon beside your cursor has a plus symbol when you are at a place where you are allowed to drop the activity. When the cursor becomes a crossed out circle, continue moving the cursor until it becomes a plus sign again.
  3. Click the area of the canvas where you want to drop the activity.
  4. Configure the activity as necessary in the Properties area of the process editor.

Your newly created activity will appear on the canvas.

Note: The Use Data Type Variables option may not appear if the operation being invoked by this activity uses a WSDL message with a parameter extension. To work around this, proceed as follows:
  • Disable the Use Data Type Variables check box in the activity.
  • Create two "Interface"-typed variables for the input and output. These variables are actually WSDL-message-typed, but in the business process editor you select an Interface and Operation and direction (input or output) and the editor will determine which WSDL message to use.
  • Add Assign activities before and/or after the Invoke to copy the data into these variables.

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