Timer Expression - Interval Literals Issue

Question

Hi
JDeveloper 11.1.1.6, WLS 10.3.6, BPM 11.1.1.6
I am trying to use XPATH expressions in the Timer Catch Event
I tried giving the Interval Literal as in the 26.12.3 section of Writing Expressions - 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6.1)
All I want to do is set the timer value to 1 minute.
I gave the XPATH expression as '1m'
I have even tried giving the expression value as a variable from process data object and still it does not work.
I selected Time Cycle, and Use Expression, XPath Exp : bpmn:getDataObject('timerData')/ns:timerValue
The following post also mentions that it works if we give the literal as 2h
https://forums.oracle.com/message/11067100#11067100
I tried the timer as a catch event in the process and boundary event on a human task, but both are not working.
The process comes to the timer event and stops there. The Audit Trail/Flow in EM does not show it entered the timer event.
Can you please let me know if I am missing anything.
Thanks and Regards
Sameer

Answer 1

Hi Sameer,
With timer event logic, part of the confusion stems from the two syntaxes you can have based on the "Time Date" (elapse at some time in the future) or "Time Cycle" (elapse after the time period specifies elapses).
If all you want to do is to have the event time out after one minute, you could use this syntax if the Time Cycle radio button is selected:
    string(‘PT1M’)
This won't work without casting it to a string as shown above.  The upper case "M" above is correct and does not mean month in this case because it is after "T" in the expression.
If you wanted one year, 3 months, 5 days, 7 hours, 10 minutes and 3.3 seconds the syntax would be:
    string(‘P1Y3M5DT7H10M3.3S’)
If you wanted the event to expire after one minute and wanted to use the Time Date syntax (by selecting the Time Date radio button), the syntax would instead be:
    xp20:add-dayTimeDuration-to-dateTime(xp20:current-dateTime(),'PT1M')
This logic is for the Timer events.  Strangely, the deadline syntax that you use to set in a Human Task's deadline is slightly different.  Human Task deadlines are important because they establish the value that will appear to end users in the Workspace's Expires column.
Dan