Workflow - marking work items as obsolete

I'm working on a workflow that allows cost center managers to approve or reject purchase requisitions. I'm trying to create some logic that will trigger the workflow when the purchase req is significantly changed, in addition to just being created. When it gets changed, I want to be sure that it's not deleted. If it was deleted rather than being changed some other way, I want to mark all active work items for that particular req as obsolete so they're no longer out there for approval. I put in a "set obsolete" step for each piece of the workflow that creates a work item prior to terminating the workflow. When I try to test this, however, the workflow DOES recognize that the req was deleted, but it doesn't even show the "set obsolete" steps in the log, it just terminates. The "set obsolete" step doesn't seem to have much to it, but is it possible that I'm just doing something wrong?
Thanks,
Eric

Hi Eric
You shouldn't use "set obsolete" for this.
Depending on your version, you can either use a fork and a wait for the event "Deleted" in one of the branches or simply, in the new version, define a terminating event on the header level.
Check this thread, it explains how, the example is based on restart, but you can use the methodology to cancel you workflow instances as well.
Re: Restart Workflow ?
Regards
Morten Nielsen

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I am getting error in this part.
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Error when determining attribute 'Zvalue' of object instance '[BO.BUS2105.001039]'
Step 15 of WS23000111: Binding from workflow to work item aborted
Message no. WFEA031
Diagnosis
Serious errors have occurred in the binding from workflow to work item in step 15 of multistep task WS23000111. As a consequence, workflow 1039 has been forced into error status.
Procedure
"Change Workflow Container" then "Restart After Error" may suffice. It is probable, however, that the binding definition in WS23000111, step 15will have to be changed.
pl help me to proceed further.
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Moderator note: As per comments, IA's answer was accepted as correct, thus marked accordingly.
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I used transaction SWI2_DIAG to diagnose the error and tried to restart the workitem manually .The changes were made to Org chart and now everything is fine but I am still getting error message:
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This is my message from Production:
Resolution of rule AC00000168 for task TS93000019: no agent found
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Edited by: Sergey on Nov 2, 2010 5:05 PM

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Hi Experts,
We are using modeled deadline monitoring. We are setting the " Workitem to obsolete" in the process control step.
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In case of repeated deadline monitoring, what do we need to do.
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Hi Gautam,
Thanks for your response.
You have specified Loop using status change in the second branch.....what i wanted to know whether is it necessary to validate whether the work item was processed in the second branch.
Correct me if i am wrong....the concept of using a FORK is to have 2 activities running in parallel. Let us say that we have the first branch having the approval process and the second branch is having the loop using status change.
In the second branch, if we create a DUMMY method and set a deadline to it as 1 day. Let us set a container variable say lv_deadline as 'X' in the DUMMY method. Below that we put in a send mail step that sends the mail to the approver. This happens inside a loop in which we set the condition as Loop until lv_deadline = X.
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Hi,
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http://help.sap.com/saphelp_srm50/helpdata/en/58/c14e3c59bfe747e10000000a11402f/frameset.htm
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Hello Martin,
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The process being workflowed is the approval of service entrysheets (similar to an invoice if you are not familiar with External Services). In our process, there are a large number of documents being created and requiring approval by particular approvers. It is a normal scenario for an approver to have, lets say 25 documents in his inbox awaiting approval. It was not practical for him to have to navigate back and forth between his inbox and the approval task screen. Therefore, I give the users the option of (when executing a work item) having all the documents in his in-box (for this particular task) be presented in an approval list screen. They can then do a mass approval of the 25 documents with 1 click and 1 navigation. This list screen is also available to be executed outside workflow via a tcode. So, when the user executes the mass approval (either from the inbox or outside workflow) the work items are terminated via the terminating event assigned to the approval task.
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<b>Question:</b> Is there a way (user exit?) to trigger the inbox refresh automatically.
2) Now, the issue with the actual work item which the user executes from the inbox. As I mentioned, the work item is locked as soon as the user executes it and is not released until they back out of the dialog or logoff. So, here is what happens: If the terminating event is sent before the lock is released the event is sent to the event queue. If they then back out back to the in-box, its OK since I put some code in the SWO1 object type program (rememeber, its now synchronous) which will determine if they did the approval/rejection and the work item will complete and the event in the event queue will be deleted the next time the Event Queue Background job runs (it deletes any events for work items already in COMPLETED status). However, lets say they simply log off rather than backing up to the in-box or they don't do anything and are eventually logged off by timeout. In this case the code in the object type program to determine if the approval/rejection was done does not get executed (control does not return to the object type program) and the work item remains in "STARTED" status and remains in the users inbox and the event is in the event queue. So, now we have a work item that should be completed still sitting in the users in-box and the terminating event in the event queue. So the next time the user goes to their inbox the work item is still there. The interesting thing is that though this may be confusing to the user, if they then attempt to execute the work item, they will get a message: "Work item currently being completed by event" (Message SWF_RUN 644) and the event sitting in the event queue gets redelivered and completes the work item. To alleviate this problem I was thinking of adding a call to SAP_WAPI_WORKITEM_COMPLETE in the approval list screen after they do the approval but I'm guessing it wont work since it probably will try to enqueue the work item and it will still be locked.
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Thank you,
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Hi All,
We are facing an issue for Purchase Order Approval Workflow whereas Work Items are going to different approver without substitution is activated.
Regards
Chayan

Hello,
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regards
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Hi
Looking at the error message I feel like there is something wrong in the task object and object method. You are using a class in the task make sure that class has the IF_WORKFLOW. Mak sure the task is enabled with synchronous task method check box.
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Pavan

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Hi,
I have an requirement where in i need to terminate the workitem after a user decision step. The termination should happen when the user decision is a 'Reject'.
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Many thanks,
Raghav.

My bad....I was a bit hasty in answering that!!
Did you try activating the 'Processing obsolete' in the outcomes tab of the decision step? You should do that, and leave the path empty if you don't have any logic to add.
Let me know if this works.
-Krisnan
Edited by: Krisnan Kumar on Jul 29, 2008 9:24 PM

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Edited by: Thomas Debouverie on Jun 11, 2009 10:53 AM

HI,
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Does the standard function not do what you want?
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Hello,
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Mike
Message was edited by:
Mike Pokraka

Workflow - marking work items as obsolete

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