Creating Process Monitors for Business Users

Process monitors allow you to create customized overviews of processes. You create custom process monitors for business users who might not really be interested in the processing of the file transfer, for example, but need a more global overview. Chain processes and Chain processes are mapped with processes of the business user monitor. You should choose the processes the business user is most interested in, and for each create a process monitor with a simple name describing the process in question.

Process Monitors

Process monitors have several sequential steps, just like a chain. You map processes, chains, and Chain processes to process monitor steps; when a process reaches a final status, it updates the process monitor.

Process monitors are initialized with an instance name. You specify the instance name in the process or chain process to match an instance of a process monitor. Process monitor instances are available to allow you to have several process monitors from the same process monitor definition run concurrently.

You specify the Business_Instance parameter on a chain to be able to dynamically specify an instance at submit time; in this case you can leave the Instance expression field empty on all process monitor updaters. When you instantiate a process monitor in a chain, you map the Instance parameter of the ProcessMonitor_Instantiate process to the Business_Instance parameter of the chain.

You specify the Business_Instance_Parameter parameter on a chain when you want to use a specific parameter on the same process as the parameter holding the instance name. Note that Business_Instance has precedence over Business_Instance_Parameter.

You create multi-dimensional process monitor hierarchies with main process monitor definitions that has several child process monitor definitions. This allows you to split the flow into several steps and meet the needs of business users. For example, the AP accountant might be more interested in the details of AP processes than the GL accountant, whereas the FC might want to see it all.

You use regular REL functions and predefined objects in process monitor updates from within chains. You use parameters.<parameter_name> in the Instance Expression field of the Process Monitor Updaters tab of the process or chain definition editor to retrieve the instance from the process or chain, respectively. If you want to access a chain parameter from a Process Monitor Updater on a chain process, you use the chainParameters.<parameter_name> when you do not wish to use the Business_Instance or Business_Instance_Parameter parameter.

Procedure

Creating a One-Dimensional Process Monitor

1. Navigate to "Definitions > Process Monitor Definitions".
2. Choose New process monitor definition from the context-menu.
3. Fill in a name on the Process Monitor Definition tab.
4. On the Process Monitor Item Definitions tab, add a definition for each step, Fill in a Display Order and Name, optionally you can fill the Description and/or Documentation fields, leave type as Task.
5. Repeat the previous step as many times as you require.
6. Choose Save & Close.

Creating a Multi-Dimensional Process Monitor

1. Navigate to "Definitions > Process Monitor Definitions".
2. Choose New process monitor definition from the context-menu.
3. Fill in a name on the Process Monitor Definition tab.
4. On the Process Monitor Item Definitions tab, add a definition for each step, Fill in a Display Order and Name, optionally you can fill the Description and/or Documentation fields.
5. Select Process Monitor in the Type field and select an available Process Monitor Definition; you can also use the New link to create an additional Process Monitor Definition.
6. Repeat the previous step as many times as you require.
7. Choose Save & Close.

Point a Process to a Process Monitor

1. Navigate to "Definitions > Processes".
2. Choose Edit from the context-menu of the process you want to link to a process monitor.
3. On the Process Monitor Updaters tab, choose Add.
4. Select a Process Monitor Definition.
5. Fill an expression into the Instance Expression field, such as parameters.Instance to retrieve the process monitor instance from the Instance process parameter.
6. Select the Task the process belongs to.

Point a Chain Process to a Process Monitor

1. Navigate to "Definitions > Chains".
2. Choose Edit from the context-menu of the chain you want to link to a process monitor.
3. If you are in the Advanced Chain Editor locate the icon for Process Monitor on the appropriate chain process.
4. Select a process monitor.
5. Fill in an instance expression and task.
6. In the HTML Chain Editor, Expand the step and choose the appropriate chain process.
7. Choose New next to Process Monitors.
8. Choose Add, Select a process monitor.
9. Fill in an instance name and select a task.
10. Choose Save & Close.

See Also

Insight