IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Developing business processes > Building business state machines > Create a business state machine

Adding a transition to a business state machine

A transition channels processing from one state to the next by recognizing the triggering event, evaluating the conditions necessary for control to flow through it, and determining what actions can occur should processing be allowed. An event can trigger more than one transition at a time, but only one of those transitions will fire.

To add a transition, proceed as follows:

Procedure

1. Drop a state onto the canvas.
2. Move the cursor over the state until the yellow circle appears as shown in this image.

   

3. Hold the left mouse button The cursor will change appearance, and will look like a crossed out circle.

4. Drag the cursor out over the canvas. When you hover over a valid target, the crossed out circle disappears.

5. Click the activity that you want to link to. A dark gray arrow will appear on the canvas linking the source and target activities.

6. To designate the visual path of the transition on the canvas, right-click the transition, select Layout and choose from one of the following two options:

   Option	Description
   Bendpoint	This is the default setting, and will automatically choose the shortest and most direct path. You can manually adjust this path by selecting the transition, clicking the tiny black box that appears at the midpoint of the transition, and then dragging it to a new location. Two new black boxes will appear at the mid-point of each half, and you can adjust these as well until the transition appears on the canvas as you want.
   Rectilinear	Choose this setting to have the transition automatically drawn for you. The bends will always be at ninety degree angles.

   You will only see one of these options at a time. When one option appears in the drop-down menu, then the other one is, by default, the active choice.

Results

Exceptions that occur while processing a user action are ignored and the transition continues in all cases except one: When the triggering event is a call event and the operation defines a fault message, the transition will stop and the fault will be propagated back to the caller. Control will remain in the current state for this one case. Click one of the following links to configure this new transition.

• Adding an operation to a transition
  An operation is an external prompt, represented by an interface, that attempts to trigger a movement from one state to another.
• Adding a timeout to a transition
  A timeout imposes a duration or an expiration on a state so that it will not be maintained indefinitely while waiting for an operation that may never occur. When the timeout expires, the transition on which it is defined is followed (assuming the proper conditions are met).
• Adding a condition to a transition
  A condition guards a transition, and will only allow movement to the next state when and if the condition evaluates to "True".
• Adding an action to a transition
  An action is an activity that is executed on a transition.
• Designating a self transition
  Most transitions are from one state to another. This is not the case with self-transitions.

Create a business state machine

Related tasks:
Work with composite states
Adding a state to a business state machine
Adding an entry or an exit to a state