Working with Transitions

Transitions are used to connect two activities to represent the flow of process execution from one activity to the other.

Transitions are added between activities in a process and are configured to fit the process goal.

Adding a Transition

You can choose to add a transition in one of the following ways:
  • Click the Create a Transition icon in the Palette view's toolbar and draw a line between two activities that are to be connected.
  • Select the beginning activity of the transition, click the icon and drag and drop it on to the ending activity of the transition.

Configuring a Transition

After creating a transition specify the configuration information on the General tab of the Properties view:

  1. Label: Add a label for the transition that will be available in the diagram. This label can be changed later.
  2. Fill Color: Select Color for the transition from the basic colors or define a custom color. Color coding helps you distinguish among different transitions based on the conditions that are defined for them. The default color for Error is red, while the default color for other transition types is black.
  3. Condition Type: Select the type of the condition for the selected transition: Success, Success with condition, Success with no matching condition, and Error.
You can define several types of conditions for a transition:
Success

Take this transition unconditionally. If the activity completes successfully, always transition to the activity the transition points to. This is the default condition for transitions.

Success with Condition

Specify a custom condition using XPath. If the activity completes successfully, and the condition evaluates to true, take the transition to the pointed-to activity.

Success with no Matching Condition

Take this transition when the activity completes successfully but only if no other transitions are taken. This is useful when multiple transitions with conditions are drawn to other activities. This condition type can be used to handle any cases not handled by the conditions on the other transitions.

Error

Take this transition if there is an error during the activity processing.

Error Transitions

Error transitions are taken if there is an error during the processing of an activity or group. When an activity or group throws an error or fault, none of the success conditions are taken; only the error transition is executed. An error transition can be added to process starter activities, signal-in activities, regular activities, and groups.

Note: Activities and groups only support one error transition at a time.