Is is possible to create an APPROVE Only service?

Daniel Faust · ‎11-17-2011

2006.07
Oracle 9i
Websphere 5.11
IE 6&7

Hi:

Has anyone been able to make an APPROVE ONLY service? We have had several requests that want to use the system for AUDIT putposes without doing any tasks.

As far as I can tell, this is a task based system and there has to be 1 task, even setting the task to fail condition 1=2 generates the monitor plan. (which someone has to complete)

I know that APPROVE ONLY services (with email confirmation) are not the purpose of this product, but the customers are demanding it.

Any Ideas?

Thank you
Daniel
Safeway Inc.

Tylor Hagerman · ‎11-17-2011

You should be able to create a task that uses the External ServiceLink "Dummy" adapter to auto-close the task. I use that frequently with authorization tasks to send extra email notifications during our service lifecycles. Never tried it with a plan task though.

James Fuller · ‎11-17-2011

Hi Dan,

I don't think there is a way to create a service that doesn't have a task plan at all. While you can create a service to auto-close after approval, it would still generate a monitor plan and the auto-close task as part of a task plan.

Curious if this is true for later versions of RC.

Leslie Tierstein · ‎11-17-2011

An auto-complete dummy adapter works just fine with a delivery plan task.

Scott Stauffer · ‎11-17-2011

Hi Daniel,

I have an approval only service like this in production that doesn't use ServiceLink. It has one "fake" task with the condition set to FALSE. Be sure to check the 'Start and complete plan automatically?' checkbox on the plan page.

Once the request has gone through it's 2 approvals, the "fake" task is automatically set to Skipped, the monitor task is set to Completed, and the request is set to Closed.

Below is a screenshot of the service's plan so you can see all the setting

Daniel Faust · ‎11-17-2011

I just found out from my co-worker "Chitra" that she has made this work in the past by having 1 parent and 1 child task and the child task has the condition of 1=2.

I will try that out and see if it works...

UNFORTUNATELY, we never installed ServiceLink :(

Thanks All
Daniel

James Fuller · ‎11-17-2011

These are great and we've used them here as well, but what if a service for approval only is needed? No task plan should be generated at all. Is that possible in any of the current versions of RC?

Ed Contini - newScale · ‎11-17-2011

This is not currently possible. Even if you don't configure any task plan at all, the system will create a Monitor task which will stay open until someone closes it by clickling Cancel. So, the only "automated" option here is to create a plan with a single, auto-complete task.