Clarity

In Clarity 14.2,  and just for an specific process and step, after answering a manual action, in Organizer the action keeps the answered value (Done, Cancel,...)  when it should be "Closed".

However, the Action item answer was processed properly by a post condition and the process moved forward, and curiously later manual action will take the vale "Closed" after the process moves to a next step.

The action item message has active the option "Make Action Item available to other Steps"

On the other hand, this problem is not related to an environment because after migrating it through xog, same failure happens a different environment.

Fortunately, this is not a problem of duplicates, so even if the action item is answered again any new value, the process ignores it, so the impact is limited to the display of the actions.

Checking at database.

CAL_ACTION_ITEM_ASSIGNEES.STATUS_CODE="DONE"

where it should have the value "CAL_CLOSED"

Hi Daniel,

This is the expected behavior when you have the option "Make Action Available to Other Steps" selected.  

When it is not selected, the action item will close when the process moves to the next step.

When you select this option, the action item will not be closed until the process is completed.  This way if you want to base a condition in a later step on the user response to this action item, the response can be seen by the other steps.

Jeanne

I can understand that different displaying behavior.

But having the action available for editing at Organizer. It allows the assignee to modify the previous value and it is no a expected behavior.

Example of an scenario with a non expected result:

1. A user during step2 chose a value X for the ActionItem2
2. During the step 4, from Organizer the user replaces the original value at ActionItem2 with value Y
3. At step (step6) a post condition is based in ActionItem2, it is expected to find the value X but we have Y 
4. Result: Depending on the design of step6 conditions, the flow will get stuck to this step or it will move to a wrong step.
   

Why the organizer displays as active an action of a past step?

Hi Daniel,

I am not one of the developers.  So, I have no way of telling you why any particular decision was made in the design of the product.  I can only tell you how the product behaves and that it has behaved this way since at least version 7.2..

If this is important to you, you can make an enhancement request through your company representative.

New Customer Innovation Process for Clarity PPM 

Though I think it is defective and unsafe design, it seems that it works as designed.

from a version 8 guide:

To make this action item available to other steps, click Make Action Item and attached objects available to other Steps.

If you select this check box, the action item object itself (created in this manual action), as well as all attached objects (for example, documents or forms) become available to other steps in the entire process. These objects can then be used in the condition builder to build pre and post conditions. The action item is not automatically closed after the step containing the manual action completes; it automatically closes after the entire process completes, unless you create a system action in a following step to explicitly close the action item.

Hi Daniel,

That documentation is still correct.  You can create a specific system action in a later step (once you are done accessing the response to the action item) to close that action item.

Jeanne

Yes, the "open action" can/should be closed after used, and this good practice will make the process much safe (specifically when steps in the middle don't contain action items)

However, if we have an "action item" between the "open action" and a later step using it, and supposing that the user  spend weeks to answer the "action item", then the  previous "open action" will be available for modification too much time, so making all process really unsafe.

Hi Daniel,

Please feel free to submit a suggestion through your representative for voting on enhancements to PPM.

Thanks,

Jeanne