Ad Hoc Workflow Routing

Question

Has anyone developed an Ad Hoc workflow in Content Services using BPEL?
I am doing this using the User Request action to initiate the workflow. I'm also using the Ad Hoc design pattern in BPEL. This works well.
My problem is, I am not sure how to specify the person who should be the first assignee. Is there a way to use an optional attribute or something that would be a username?

Answer 1

Looking in to the source code a bit deeper - it turns out that there is (currently) an undocumented way to dynamically add a responder to a request item.
You can send an escelation message (IFS_ECM_ESCALATION_RESPONSE) back on IFS_BPEL_IN with a username supplied in the (IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_RESPONDER) parameter - which will get added to the request if not already present.
The user thus can see full details of the request item. What I have not fully tested yet is whether the user has read access to any saved definitions found in the REQUEST_DEFINITIONS section when dealing with FdkConstants.CREATE_DOCUMENT_REQUEST_TYPE request types.
Anyway, the following code is from the BPEL processes that I'll be soon releasing after running Oracle BPEL's schemac tool on CONTENT_IFSQUEUEMESSAGE.xsd to generate Java helper classes ...
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IFSQUEUEMESSAGE;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IFSQUEUEMESSAGEFactory;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETER;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETERFactory;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.PARAMETERS;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.PARAMETERSFactory;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IIFSQUEUEMESSAGE;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IIFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETER;
import com.oracle.xmlns.xdb.CONTENT.IPARAMETERS;
  public static final String WF_MESSAGETYPE_ESCALATION =
    "IFS_ECM_ESCALATION_RESPONSE";
  public static final String WF_PARAM_PROCESSID =
    "IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_PROCESSID";
  public static final String WF_PARAM_RESPONDER =
    "IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_RESPONDER";
  // returning this message allows addition of new responder on the REQUEST item
  public static IFSQUEUEMESSAGE getWorkflowEscalationMessage(
    long processid, String user
    throws Exception
    IFSQUEUEMESSAGE msg = IFSQUEUEMESSAGEFactory.createFacade();
    msg.setMESSAGETYPE(WF_MESSAGETYPE_ESCALATION);
    PARAMETERS parameters = PARAMETERSFactory.createFacade();
    IFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETER param1 =
      IFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETERFactory.createFacade();
    param1.setNAME(WF_PARAM_PROCESSID);
    param1.setVALUE(String.valueOf(processid));
    param1.setDATATYPE("STRING");
    parameters.addPARAMETERLIST_ITEM(param1);
    IFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETER param2 =
      IFSQUEUEMESSAGEPARAMETERFactory.createFacade();
    param2.setNAME(WF_PARAM_RESPONDER);
    param2.setVALUE(user);
    param2.setDATATYPE("STRING");
    parameters.addPARAMETERLIST_ITEM(param2);
    msg.setPARAMETERLIST(parameters);
    return msg;
  }If you want to test from PL/SQL, you can do so with something like the following :-
/* Enqueue to IFS_BPEL_IN: */
DECLARE
   enqueue_options     dbms_aq.enqueue_options_t;
   message_properties  dbms_aq.message_properties_t;
   message_handle      RAW(16);
   -- recipients          DBMS_AQ.aq$_recipient_list_t;
   queueMsg            IFSQUEUEMESSAGE;
BEGIN
--  -- Indicates that a Workflow is successfully completed.
--  IFSQUEUEMESSAGE.initialize('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_MSG_COMPLETE',queueMsg);
--  queueMsg.AddParameterToList('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_PROCESSID','48944','STRING');
--  -- Response - True if request is approved, False otherwise
--  queueMsg.AddParameterToList('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_RESPONSE','TRUE','STRING');
--  -- Indicates that a time out has occurred in the Workflow 
--  IFSQUEUEMESSAGE.initialize('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_MSG_EXPIRED',queueMsg);
--  queueMsg.AddParameterToList('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_PROCESSID','48944','STRING');
--  -- Indicates that a responder has not responded to the request in the specified time limit.
--  IFSQUEUEMESSAGE.initialize('IFS_ECM_ESCALATION_RESPONSE',queueMsg);
--  queueMsg.AddParameterToList('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_PROCESSID','48944','STRING');
--  queueMsg.AddParameterToList('IFS_ECM_WORKFLOW_RESPONDER','RICH','STRING');
  dbms_aq.enqueue(queue_name      => 'IFS_BPEL_IN',          
                  enqueue_options => enqueue_options,      
                  message_properties   => message_properties,    
                  payload              => queueMsg,              
                  msgid                => message_handle);
   COMMIT;
END;
/In terms of dates, I expect in the new few weeks. By the way, these workflows are built based on the Content DB development kit. Though you should be able to manually backport these in to the old Content Services workflow framework if you wanted.
cheers
Matt.