AW: Excluded Agent

Wed May 15 08:42:40 EDT 2002

Stephen,

agreed -- that would seem logical, as normally you're allowed to use any
org. object type, not just. 'US'. So it would not hurt to have it in place,
at least for consistency reasons.

On the other hand if we consider the agent determination procedure,

  AGENTS := allowed agents  x  agents from task  -  excluded agents

then the implicit logic I see is:
- use "allowed agents" to implement more or less a WF authorization scheme
- use agents from task to specify who you're actually interested in
- use excluded agents in those rare cases where you need to specifically
exclude someone (e.g. request initiator from approving it).

Please note that "excluded agents" is a bit of candy -- you could actually
use a role to specify the "agents from task" that would do exactly the same
job. Having this simply makes your life easier in those rare cases where you
have this few folks whom you've already addressed in your workflow excluded
from the nice set your org unit or role specifies. And it's implicitly
assumed this assignment is dynamic. If you didn't want someone to ever do a
task, we should rather use the "allowed agents" to restrict him from doing
that -- regardless of the workflow the task comes in.

In other words, excluded agents are most likely to be given a USER ID that
has already come up in the workflow somehow. And except for a couple of
fancy HR WFs I could not think of a scenario where it would get a position
instead. Still, if "We want to use position because if changing position
occurs, WF doesn't have to be changed", that's rather something we do with
the allowed agents. And accepting only 'US' prevents us from using a bad
design. I'm not a friend of a too-restrictive software, but this bug could
just as well be called a feature.

Possibly I'm trying to build a whole philosophy out of thin air here.
Possibly it's just an "accidental feature" (=bug), maybe a deliberate one.
It's hard to balance the benefit of consistency and flexibility with the
cost of strange things happening here. This time it is this way -- perhaps
not the perfect one, but probably still acceptable.

With a philosophical grin -- kind regards,

Tomasz

-----Original Message-----
From: Becker Stephan (extern)
[mailto:Stephan.Becker.ext at mchw.siemens.de]
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 1:29 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: AW: Excluded Agent

Hi Thomas,

I may be wrong, but I always assumed that when an expression could be used,
the engine would allow any organisational object.

Regards,
Stephan

-----Original Message-----
From: Zmudzin,Tomasz,VEVEY,GL-DS/DM [mailto:Tomasz.Zmudzin at nestle.com]
Sent: Dienstag, 14. Mai 2002 18:06
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: AW: Excluded Agent

Judy, Stephen

as far as I understand the problem is not in using an expression for the
excluded agents, but passing positions (P-type) instead of plain users (US)
by that expression. It's hard for me to judge, but this behavior may well be
deliberate. The exclusion is supposed to be used in the dynamic context
(e.g. exclude initiator from approving), while checking for positions  is
typical rather for static setups.

Why do you actually want to pass the excluded agents by positions? If you
say "We want to use position because if changing position occurs, WF doesn't
have to be changed.", you can better do this by setting the allowed agents
for the task. Here you can use positions without any problems.

Kind regards,
Tomasz.

-----Original Message-----
From: Becker Stephan (extern)
[mailto:Stephan.Becker.ext at mchw.siemens.de]
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 5:35 PM
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: AW: AW: Excluded Agent

Hi Judy,

the functionality you described should work as you describe it -- excluded
agents can be an expression just as the possible ones. Double-check your
customizing and create an OSS message if the problems persist.

Hth,
Stephan

-----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Jy R [mailto:Judy_Ryser at lincolnelectric.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 14. Mai 2002 14:34
An: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Betreff: Re: AW: Excluded Agent

Hi Stephan,
Sorry, I didn't know you cannot see the image file. I have a multistep WF,
in a user decision step I filled the excluded agent with a container
element. The container element has been populated in a step before this
user decision. In the test, I found out if I populate the container element
with position the users under the position will not be excluded. It only
works when I populate it with user id.
Thanks
Judy

"Becker Stephan (extern)" <Stephan.Becker.ext at mchw.siemens.de>
@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> on 05/14/2002 04:46:32 AM

Please respond to SAP Workflow Users' Group <SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>

Sent by:  SAP Workflow <Owner-SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>

To:   SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
cc:

Subject:  AW: Excluded Agent

Hi Judy,

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve and how you are going about
it.

Please explain what ZTESTPOS is (a single step task in a multistep task?)
and where you fill in the position and/or the user id (field agent/excluded
agent etc.).

Thanks,
Stephan

-----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Jy R [mailto:Judy_Ryser at lincolnelectric.com]
Gesendet: Montag, 13. Mai 2002 22:36
An: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Betreff: Excluded Agent

WF experts:
I have a user decision step in my WF. I used the following agents in the
step. If I populated ZTESTPOS with a position ( i.e  S 00001234 ), the
people under the position still get the WI. But if I populated ZTESTPOS
with user id ( i.e  USDSMITH ), it works OK, and DSMITH has been excluded.
Is it supposed to be like that? Or any OSS can fix it? I have checked, and
could not find any. We want to use position because if changing position
occurs, WF doesn't have to be changed. Of course we can create a custom
task to get the user Ids under the position. But if SAP already has the
solution, we would like to use it. We are in 46C.

(Embedded image moved to file: pic27595.pcx)

Thanks in advance.
Judy

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