Single workitem for multiple IDOC errors?

[Becker, Stephan]

How about this logic: The workflow starts and as the first steps looks
around whether another one of its kind is active. If yes, the workflow in
question raises an event that all these other workflows are waiting for and
that cause the other workflows to end or not send a message, whatever you
want; of course do not end the workflow raising the event (check the
instance and do not end the workflow if the event is raised by the same
workflow instance that receives it).
Once the workflow that is left is past the initial event, immediately set
the wait event again to the one that was there before, in case there are
more workflows coming afterwards. That second event needs to be in a fork
with one branch necessary to complete the fork, hence if another workflow
triggers the "end" event afterwards, the other workflow will take the lead.
In the second branch of said fork you have a dummy step with a deadline that
will be active for as long as you set fit (eg the time it usually takes to
get all those idocs of one batch processed), and once that deadline is
expired, the remaining lead workflow will send the error message.
As the icing on the cake, you could transfer some data about the workflows
that end themselves through the wait event, through yet another raise/wait
event that goes from the ending to the leading workflow, and you could
collect that data in the leading workflow, then you even have an audit
trail.
This just off the top of my head without having tried it, anyone see why
this wouldn't work?
Greetings,
Stephan
 
-----Mensaje original-----
De: Michael Pokraka [mailto:workflow at quirky.me.uk]
Enviado el: 09 December 2003 18:38
Para: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Asunto: Single workitem for multiple IDOC errors?
 
Hi,
I have a potential scenario where we want to prevent repetitive IDOC error
work
items. Client wants to know when an IDOC fails, but doesn't need 2000
workitems
to tell them that a batch of 2000 IDOCs failed for the same reason.
 
Is there a 'neat' way anyone has implemeted to handle this sort of
requirement?
It does of course raise the question of reliability/traceability of WF for
IDOC
error handling, but that's a seperate discussion for the time being. So far
looking at things such as a check function which looks for similar instances
within n seconds, a workflow which interrogates inboxes, using a task to log
stuff into a table and generate WI's from there, ...  but thought I'd just
see
if anyone has any previous experience.
 
Any input appreciated,
Cheers
Mike