Approval procedures with workflow

[Zmudzin,Tomasz,VEVEY,GL-IS/IT]

You can have a check function module registered in the linkage of your
workflow and your event. When the event is raised, the check function module
is called before the raising a new workflow. In this FM you can check, if
there's another workflow instance already running (i.e. in status "In
process" / "Error?") for your object (e.g. via a call to
SAP_WAPI_WORKITEMS_TO_OBJECT).
 
If there's another workflow in process for your object, your check FM needs
to raise an exception. In this case the new workflow will not be started,
and your existing process will continue. If there's no other workflow
running for your object, your FM needs to finish without any exceptions. A
new workflow instance will then be started.
 
Hope this helps,
Tomasz
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dror Weiss [mailto:drorw at hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday,20. May 2003 12:17
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Approval procedures with workflow
 
 
Hello everybody,
 
I have a general question regarding approval procedures with workflow.
In the example I'm dealing with the case is approval of an employee trip by
several functions in the company management.
The general scheme of the workflow I created is a loop that occurs until the
trip is finally approved or the initiator chooses to withdraw his approval
request. Every time a rejection occurs the trip request is sent back to the
initiator for repairs and the approval procedure starts over.
I implemented this process using the 'loop-until' step in the workflow
template.
The triggering event for the workflow is EmployeeTrip.Requested (business
object BUS2089).
 
The big problem is that when the initiator changes the trip request after a
rejection occurs the triggering event is raised and another instance of the
workflow is created - in parallel to the original workflow which is still in
progress. Of course this situation is very undesirable.
 
Another possibility I considered is to stop the workflow and send the trip
request back to the initiator. When the initiator repairs the request a new
workflow for the repaired request will start. This method is very
problematic since the history and attached documents will not be preserved
from the original workflow.
 
If any of you have experience with similar cases or have any idea please
respond.
 
Thanks in advance,
Dror Weiss
 
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