Using a Multi-Instance Subprocess as a Complex Gateway in Oracle PCS by Dan Atwood

To speed the time it takes for a work item instance to flow through a process, copies of the instance can be sent to people in multiple roles simultaneously in the Oracle Integration Cloud Process Cloud Service (PCS).  Someone in each of the roles can then approve or reject the work item instance.  The challenge comes when an early release from all of the parallel copies is desired when anyone in any of the roles rejects their instance and the original work item instance should then continue in the process.

The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) has a complex gateway artifact with this process pattern in mind. When needed, the complex gateway’s early release capability makes it one of the most powerful tools process modelers have today when designing executable BPMN processes.  Currently, PCS does not support complex gateways. Because its functionality often needed, this blog describes how to duplicate its functionality when modeling processes using PCS.

Recently added to PCS in May 2017, I recommend that the use of a multi-instance subprocess to do this because:

• One of the multi-instance subprocess activity’s options is to send work item instances to people in multiple roles simultaneously
• Each person in a role can approve or reject the work item instances sent to them
• If one person rejects the instance, an early release can occur by defining a termination condition in its properties and the original instance can then leave the multi-instance subprocess
• If a rejection occurs, all of the other copies can automatically be removed from the other role queues

Antonis Antoniou has written an excellent blog on the PCS multi-instance subprocess.  This expands the scope of what he wrote a little to include how to assign the instances spawned to people in different roles, and shows how to cause an early release occur when a one person rejects their copy of the instance. Read the complete article here.

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