Distribution Strategies and Offer Sets

At runtime, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM determines who a work item should be distributed to, and whether it should be allocated or offered. What happens depends on how the user task that generated the work item was defined at design-time.

Offer Sets

An offer set is the set of valid resources who can execute a user task.

At design-time, the user task's participant definition defines the offer set.

At run-time, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM determines which users belong to that offer set.

Distribution Strategy

A distribution strategy determines how a work item should be distributed to the users who make up the offer set.

At design-time, a user task's distribution strategy must be defined as one of:

  • Offer to all: At run-time, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM offers the work item to all users who are members of the offer set.
  • Allocate to one: At run-time, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM allocates the work item to a single user who is a member of the offer set. It determines which user to use by selecting an allocation method. These include:
    • Round-robin. Work items are allocated to members in strict rotational order.
    • Random. Work items are allocated to members in random order.

      Allocation methods can be assigned to organizational entities using TIBCO Business Studio’s Organization Modeler. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM uses the allocation method assigned to the requisite organizational entity. If that entity does not have an allocation method, it uses Random allocation instead.

  • Allocate to offer-set member: A Performer Field must also be specified with this option, which the process must populate with the GUID of a specific member of the offer set. (For example, the user who started the process.)

    At run-time, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM allocates the work item to the user identified by the value of the Performer Field, who should be a member of the offer set. If that user is not a valid member of the offer set, the work item is instead offered to the remaining members of the offer set, as if the Offer to all distribution strategy had been used instead.

    The Allocate to offer-set member strategy allows you to support, for example, a case handler/account manager pattern, so that although the work item is originally allocated to a member of a team, the team manager can still:
    • see all items that were originally offered to the team.
    • re-allocate the work item to another member if required - for example, if the user who started the case is off work due to sickness.
    • report on work from a team perspective.
    Note: The Allocate to offer-set member distribution strategy cannot be used with the Chained Execution, Separation of Duties or Retain Familiar workflow patterns.