Allocating Work Items Overview
A work item can be allocated to a specific user. This means that the work item is supposed to be worked on by that specific user - the work item only appears in your list with a state of ALLOCATED.
A work item can be allocated to a specific user by BPM when the work item is created. When a process is being defined in TIBCO Business Studio, a distribution strategy is specified for each user task (each work item results from a user task in a business process). The distribution strategy specifies how to distribute, at runtime, a work item that is generated from the user task.
The distribution strategy will be one of the following:
- Offer - This means the work item is being offered to you to work on. Note that depending on how the user task that resulted in the work item was defined, the work item may be offered exclusively to you, or it may be offered to a group of users, any of whom can open and work on it.
If a work item is offered to a group of users, and you open and work on it (for example, you enter or change some data in the work item), the work item is removed from the work list of all other users.
- Allocate - This means the work item was given only to you to work on.
There are also functions available from the Work Views gadget that allow you to allocate a work item to yourself or to another user.
You can also change a work item that is allocated to you back to an OFFERED state, so that other users can work on it.