Activity Loop Characteristics

Activities can have looping characteristics.

When adding an activity, you can optionally use the Loop Characteristics tab to configure the activity to be a loop activity (Standard option) or multi-instance activity (Multi-Instance option). Activities configured in these ways are also known as loop activities and multi-instance activities.

Standard Looping

Standard looping behavior is based on a Boolean condition: the activity repeats (loops) as long as the Boolean condition is true. You can configure the evaluation to occur either at the start or end of each loop iteration and you can specify a maximum number of iterations.

Multi-Instance Looping

While standard looping continues until a condition, the multi-instance option lets you specify a certain collection of activity instances to execute. The number of instances is evaluated once.

The number of instances can be determined using an XPath expression.

Loop Characteristics Tab

The options on the Loop Characteristics tab let you configure the looping behavior. Types of looping behavior are as follows:

Field Description
Loop Standard or Multi-Instance.
Standard Loop Fields
Count Maximum number of loop iterations. Click Edit to use the XPath formula editor to define a Integer expression that evaluates to the variable on which the iteration will be performed. This is an optional setting. If not set, the activity loops until the Loop Condition expression evaluates to false.
Test Before If selected, the condition is checked at the beginning of an iteration of the loop.

If cleared, the condition is checked at the end of an iteration of the loop.
Condition Click Edit to use the XPath formula editor to define a Boolean expression. The looping continues while the Boolean expression evaluates to true. You can use process variables, functions, and constants.
Multi-Instance Loop Fields
Collections Click Edit to use the XPath formula editor to define a XPath expression that specifies the list of objects over which the iteration happens. Collections could be of primitive data types array or concept array.
Test Before If selected, the condition is checked at the beginning of an iteration of the loop.

If cleared, the condition is checked at the end of an iteration of the loop.
Condition Click Edit to use the XPath formula editor to define a Boolean expression. The looping continues while the Boolean expression evaluates to false and stops when the expression evaluates to true. You can use process variables, functions, and constants.