Best practice: Choosing between inline and stand-alone human tasks

There are two ways to implement a human task. Here is a discussion on when each type should be used.

If the task is implemented within a business process, it is called an inline task. Otherwise, it is referred to as a stand-alone task.

Inline task
An inline task is defined within an implementation of a business process. It can either be implemented directly in the process using a human task activity, or as a property of an invoke, pick, receive, event handler, or on message activity.
When you are first planning your human task, you should model it as an inline task if any of the following conditions are present:
  • You need information from the process logic to execute human interaction
  • You want to execute administrative tasks
  • You want to define authorization rights on specific activities
Stand-alone task
A stand-alone task exists independently of a business process, and implements human interaction as a service that can be used in many of the different components of the WebSphere Integration Developer family of tools.
When you are first planning your human task, you should model it as a stand-alone task if any of the following conditions are present:
  • You do not need any information from the business process
  • The task provides just another service

Related information

Using human tasks in different scenarios in IBM WebSphere® Integration Developer

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