Distribution Strategies and Offer Sets
At runtime, TIBCO BPM Enterprise determines who a work item should be distributed to. It also decides whether the work item should be allocated or offered. These decisions are made based 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 that can execute a user task.
At design-time, the user task's participant definition defines the offer set.
At run-time, TIBCO BPM Enterprise 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, one of the following user task's distribution strategy must be defined:
- Offer to all: At run-time, TIBCO BPM Enterprise offers the work item to all users who are members of the offer set.
- Allocate to one: At run-time, TIBCO BPM Enterprise allocates the work item to a single user who is a member of the offer set. It determines which user to allocate the work item to by selecting one of the following allocation method.
- 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 - BPM Edition ’s Organization Modeler. TIBCO BPM Enterprise 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. The process must populate this field with the GUID of a specific member of the offer set. (For example, the user who started the process.)
At run-time, TIBCO BPM Enterprise allocates the work item to the user identified by the value of the Performer Field. The user should also be a member of the offer set. If that user is not a valid member of the offer set, the work item is then 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 or account manager pattern, so that although the work item is originally allocated to a member of a team, the team manager can still perform the following actions:- 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.
- provide a report on a work item from the team's 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.