IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Get started with IBM BPM > Key concepts > BPEL processes and human tasks > Human tasks overview > Stand-alone and inline tasks

Inline tasks

Inline tasks are an integral part of the BPEL process. Inline tasks can be to-do tasks, invocation tasks, or administration tasks. Because collaboration tasks rely on the interaction between people and do not directly interact with processes, they cannot be inline tasks. Inline tasks are neither visible as SCA components (cannot be wired), nor are they reusable in other processes or activities.

Inline tasks have access to the process context, such as process variables, custom properties, and activity data. This can be useful for tasks that involve the separation of duties. Inline to-do tasks can emit their CEI and audit log events as business process activity events and human task events. Their subtasks and follow-on tasks emit events as human task events.

The following rules apply to inline tasks:

• To-do tasks are human task activities in a process. They share the same state, but the human task activity does not reflect the forwarded state or the task substates.

• Invocation tasks are associated with receive or pick (receive choice) activities, or on-event event handlers.

• Administration tasks are attached either to the process, or to an activity in the process.

• The lifecycle is usually determined by the process.

  • To-do tasks and administration tasks are created by the BPEL process, and deleted with the process.

  • Inline to-do tasks do not have their own expiration, the expiration is defined on the corresponding human task activity. When the human task activity expires, the to-do task is terminated. Updating or rescheduling of inline to-do tasks is supported by both the Human Task Manager and Business Flow Manager APIs. If the Human Task Manager API is used, the request is forwarded to the human task activity.

  • If invocation tasks are created and started by the BPEL process, their lifecycle is determined by the process, and they are deleted with the process. If they are started using the Human Task Manager API, their lifecycle is independent of the process regardless of how they were created, and their results can be displayed even after the process is deleted.

  • Instances of inline human tasks can be migrated with the process instance they are related to.

• Inline invocation tasks can be modeled with values for both the duration until expiration and the duration until deletion. These settings are available only if the tasks are created using the Human Task Manager API. These durations can be updated before the task starts, and rescheduled after the task has started.

• The update action on inline tasks supports only a subset of task properties. Only task properties that have no representation in the process or activity can be updated. For more information on the update method, see the Javadoc API documentation for the HumanTaskManager interface in the com.ibm.task.api package, and the information on which roles are authorized to make specific update actions on tasks.

Inline tasks are used for process authorization:

• The roles reader, administrator, potential owner, owner, and editor of a to-do task are identical to the corresponding roles of the human task activity in the process.

• The potential starter role of an inline invocation task determines who is allowed to invoke and send messages to the corresponding receive or pick (receive choice) activity, or on-event event handler. If that the potential starter and potential instance creator roles have identical people assignments. If an inline invocation task is not defined, everybody is authorized to start the activity or event handler.

• The administrator and reader roles for a process administration task determine who is the process administrator or the process reader. The process administrator can, for example, force terminate the process instance.

• The administrator role for an activity administration task determines who is allowed to administer the corresponding activity. The activity administrator and the process administrator can, for example, force retry the activity.

• The process reader and process administrator authorization are inherited by every process activity or inline human task.

• The scope reader and the scope administrator authorization is inherited by all of the activities in the scope.

If you are using one of the alternative process administration modes, administration tasks might not be created. In addition, administrative actions on processes, scopes, and activities might be limited to users in the BPESystemAdministrator role. For more information about alternative administration modes, see Alternative administration modes for BPEL processes.

Stand-alone and inline tasks

Related information:
Instance-based roles for BPEL processes and activities
Life cycle of BPEL processes
Authorization for task update actions