Commit happened in activity/function Exception When Launching CREATEPO WF

Question

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Hi all,
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Got a good one here. Client is receiving the error above in the standard eBusiness Suite Req Approval Workflow. The problem has been narrowed down to the responsibility level. When the final approver is logged is as one Responsibility, the error does not occur. When the final approval is done through logging in as another Responsibility, the error halts the workflow.
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All profile options are the same for both responsibilities. Both responsibilities use the same function 'Advanced Worklist' to display the Workflow Notifications. This started happening after an upgrade to 11.5.10.2.
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There is one hit on Metalink but this didn't work (note: 603475.1).
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I have been through the PL/SQL code and found that there is infact a commit statement in there. The PO Requisition Approval Workflow is calling the Create PO workflow and the error occurs when the wf_engine.StartProcess call is hit. Code flow below.
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I was always under the impression that commit statements were a big 'no no' in Workflow? I could always take it out but this is standard 11.5.10.2 code so I assume it is there for a reason. Ultimately there must be something wrong with the Responsibility but I cannot for the life of me see it. I suspect that this is tied in with the way Workflow uses the responsibility.
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<u>Code Flow</u>
^{PO_REQAPPROVAL_LAUNCH.LAUNCH_CREATEPO_WF - called from Workflow function.
PO_REQAPPROVAL_LAUNCH.LaunchCreatePOWF
PO_REQAPPROVAL_LAUNCH.CreateWFInstance
PO_AUTOCREATE_DOC.start_WF_process
commit;
wf_engine.CreateProcess - (item type - CREATEPO)
wf_engine.StartProcess - exception!}
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Any help or comments appreciated.
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Cheers,
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Jon.
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Answer 1

Not that I think that it will make any difference, BUT - have you seen MetaLink note 465827.1?
I can't see why that would make any difference - but I also disagree with the "solution" proposed in 603475.1. That particular "fix" seems to be to workaround the problem rather than actually address the fundamental flaw in the process, i.e. an activity invoked by a Workflow should NEVER issue a commit or a rollback. I'd guess that the PO team need to revisit this completely - the commit was introduced to fix a bug (which I don't have visibility of), but seems to have intoduced more problems further down the line.
My gut feeling says that the initial response from Oracle will be to determine why one responsibility is causing problems - which again is a fudge of the real problem. If you can, avoid going down this route :)
Matt
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