IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Create processes in IBM Process Designer > Designing process interactions for business users > Enabling task management
Specifying activity due dates
Activity due dates are used to calculate the expected completion time for an activity. This completion time is used during process execution to establish which activities are overdue or at risk of being overdue. In the Process Portal, tasks are presented to business users according to their due date status. Activity due dates are also used for critical path analysis to project the expected completion time for different paths through the process.
By default, the due date of a task is 2 days from the time of task creation. You can modify this duration for each activity in your process. Administrators can also change the default duration after deployment. Authorized business users can change the due date for individual activities and the overall process if you have enabled critical path management option for the process. The exact calculation of the activity due date is also affected by the Time Schedule, Timezone, and Holiday Schedule values that you specify.
Procedure
- Select an activity in the diagram and go to the Implementation tab of the Properties view. In the Due In field, specify the expected duration of time for completing the activity.
- The Time Schedule field contains the type of work schedule you want to use to calculate the activity due date.
For example, if you expect the users completing the task to be available Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, you can select this schedule from the list.
- In the Timezone field, select the time zone that you want to apply to the tasks that result from the current activity.
For example, if you expect the users completing a specific activity to be in California, you can select the US/Pacific timezone from the list.
- Each Holiday Schedule is made up of a list of dates. You can leave the Holiday Schedule value to use the default specified for the BPD, or you can use a JavaScript expression to define a holiday schedule that is specific to users completing this activity.
If you choose JavaScript, you can enter either a String (or String-generated JavaScript) or JavaScript that returns a TWHolidaySchedule variable. If you use a String, then IBM BPM looks up the Holiday Schedule by name according to those rules. If you use a TWHolidaySchedule variable, then IBM BPM assumes that the holiday schedule is filled in appropriately. (To view the parameters for the TWHolidaySchedule variable, go to the System Data toolkit and open the variable from there.)
You can leave the Time Schedule, Timezone, and Holiday Schedule fields set to (use default). If you do, the work schedule specified for the business process definition (BPD) is used. See Setting the due date and work schedule for a BPD for more information.
What to do next
If you plan to enable the critical path analysis feature for your BPD, keep in mind that variable-based due dates used in the implementation of activities are not detected in the critical path. In such cases, critical path analysis uses the default duration specified in the IBM BPM configuration properties.
Related tasks:
Developing using the JavaScript API
Manage IBM BPM configuration settings