How to get a rule to fail on blank responsibilities?

[Sheldon Oxenberg]

Hello Mike,

I experienced the same problem, and I could not find a neater way or
something seemingly obvious.

In my implementation, a "blank" value is not actually passed for the
rule, a blank value results from "no value" being passed.  Therefore, I
can default all data values to a nonsense value (e.g. '...'), which is
passed to the rule in the case of "no value", therefore resulting in a
failure. 

Regards,
Sheldon

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Pokraka [mailto:workflow at quirky.me.uk] 
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 9:09 AM
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: RE: How to get a rule to fail on blank responsibilities?

Hi Richard, 
I feel like I'm deliberately trying to be difficult here, but I promise
I'm not
:-)

The rule is used in an application -  a QM notification uses rules to
determine
the various agents when it is created. So workflow doesn't feature at
this
point. 

As to filling in values... I suggested it, but they don't want to have
to do
that for umpteen responsibilities and remember not to leave blanks for
ever
more. I also kinda find it difficult to argue the requirement of 'if it
isn't
explicitly specified by a responsibility, leave it blank'.
Oh, and there are a heck of a lot of elements to fill in ranges for -
we've
already created our own 'slimmed down' copy of the SAP standard rule
because it
has well over 200 container elements! (rules 03100024/6/7).

For now I've done the terrible deed and checked for blanks in a FM-based
rule
which calls RH_GET_ACTORS for the responsibility rule. But still I
remain
curious if there's a neater way for something seemingly obvious.

Thanks for your feedback!
Cheers
Mike

--- Richard Marut <rvmarut at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Mike,
> 
> What I meant to say was, check the data in a preceding condition step.
If
> blank, send something (mail or work item) to the workflow initiator or
an
> administrator.
> 
> By the way, have you tried not using an *? How about using a range for
Plant
> such as 0001 - 9999 and DocType of 01 - ZZ which would eliminate a
blank as
> being a valid piece of data? I didn't try this when I ran into the
same
> issue because the users wanted the work item to go to everyone when
the data
> was blank.
> 
> Richard...
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
Behalf Of
> Michael Pokraka
> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 4:51 AM
> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
> Subject: RE: How to get a rule to fail on blank responsibilities?
> 
> Hi Richard, 
> I suppose I should have added that I have little control over the
data. To
> make
> life interesting the rule also gets used outside of WF, it's used to
> populate a
> field in a document.
> 
> The biggest issue is that if the abuser doesn't fill in all the info,
it
> just
> picks the first agent. Workflow is supposed to go and get someone to
fill in
> an
> agent if it's blank, but so far the rule will always find an agent. 
> 
> I'm just desperately trying to avoid coding a FM-based rule which
checks the
> data and then calls the real rule... it's just way too big a hammer
for
> cracking a peanut. 
> 
> Thanks for the input,
> Cheers
> Mike
> 
> --- Richard Marut <rvmarut at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> > Mike,
> > 
> > How about checking the data in a previous step before the activity
step
> with
> > the responsibility role/rule? You can then take a different path or
action
> > when the data is blank.
> > 
> > Richard...
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
Behalf
> Of
> > Michael Pokraka
> > Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 12:52 PM
> > To: SAP Workflow User Group
> > Subject: How to get a rule to fail on blank responsibilities?
> > 
> > G'day all, 
> > Passing a blank value to a responsibility will always result in a
positive
> > test. Can't get them to fail on blank data. Unless of course I'm
having a
> > daft
> > day (quite possible, it's been a long one!)? 
> > 
> > Now, the tricky bit is that I have many values to test against, but
lets
> > keep
> > it simple: 
> > 
> > Resp1  Plant = 1000, DocType = *,  Agent 1
> > Resp2  Plant = *,    DocType = ZZ, Agent 2
> > 
> > If I test this without entering any data, it will return all agents,
even
> > with
> > 'Terminate if no resolution' switched on. It somehow feels like a
stupid
> > question... but how to get around that? 
> > 
> > In short I want only those with MATCHING data to return agents. I.e.
in
> the
> > example above, it I test it with Plant 9999, it will return Agent 2
(since
> > the
> > doctype is blank). For my purposes, this should also fail (but isn't
as
> > important as both blanks above). 
> > 
> > Any obvious answer I might have missed? 
> > Cheers
> > Mike
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > SAP-WUG mailing list
> > SAP-WUG at mit.edu
> > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> > 
> 
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