Worker fields

Workers have fields which are used to run the process. There are three sets of fields:

Modifiable worker fields can be changed manually once a worker has been created, though in most cases they are maintained programatically.
Hidden worker fields control the execution of the process, and can only be maintained programatically.
Worker display fields summarise the worker to display it to the user.

Modifiable worker fields

To see the modifiable worker fields, you need to edit the worker. If you have opened an invididual worker in a tab, use the Edit button at the top of the page to see these fields.

The fields are arranged on three tabs: Process, Connection and Groups.

Worker edit, process tab

The Process group provides a field to change the worker name. It also has two indicators:

Worker active indicates that the worker is enabled. This is reserved for future use, and should always be set.
Action required indicates that action is required on the worker. Workers with required actions are shown in bold in the process client worker listing.

Worker edit, connections tab

The Connections group lists the connections used to identify other partners in the process, and the role for each. In this example, the owner is accessed through the Self connection.

Worker edit, groups tab

The Groups tab lists the groups of which this worker is a member and through which is can be viewed. It can be in more than one group.

The worker will automatically be included in the groups that represent each of its listed connections. Setting the Private indicator changes this behaviour, and does not put the worker in these connection groups.

Hidden worker fields

The modifiable fields only tell part of the story. The fields that control process execution are not on any of the tabs, and are therefore hidden. You can view them from a worker by adding tabNumber=0 to the URL, either ?tabNumber=0 to view the hidden fields, or ?tabNumber=0&method=edit to view them in edit mode, which will give you a URL like https://embed.metrici.com/yourcompany/process_client/workers/N123.1?method=edit&tabNumber=0.

This reveals additional hidden fields which are set when the process is created or set programmatically as the process excutes. Hidden fields should not be modified manually.

Process type name	A name for the process being run.
Process type reference	A reference for the process being run.
Process owner	Indicates if this worker is the owner of the process. When using process modules, this indicator is not typically used.
Last activity timestamp	The point in time when the last significant action took place on this worker. This is set by the process.
Of interest	Whether this worker is of interest. This is set to true if the worker requires action or when the last activity timestamp is set. If the worker does not require action, it is turned off some time after the last significant action. This is set by the process, and turned off automatically.
Status	The status of the worker. This is used to control the actions available on the user. This is often expressed in the form "reference/name" such as "documentSent/Document sent". The reference before the slash is used to control the actions, the name after the slash is used to display the status. If there is no slash, the entire string is used both as a reference and as a name. The status is set by the process.
Message	The current message associated with the worker. This is set by the process.
Process identifier	The process identifier for the worker.
Role	This worker's role in the process. A blank role means this is acting as the process owner (this does not necessarily tie up with the Process owner indicator).
Process definition	A definition of the process to be run.
Status rules	Rules that control what actions to shown for different statuses.
Tag list	When viewing (not editing) the worker, shows tags associated with this worker.
Configuration options	Additional options that can be set when the worker is created, and then accessed by the worker or by other processes. You can use configuration options to display a worker as an icon in the process client. Set showWorker to true, set the icon to the icon class, and set color to the icon color.
Node options	When viewing (not editing) the worker, summarises the current state of the worker.

Worker display fields

When viewing the worker (not editing it), three diplay-only fields are visible on the Process tab.

The worker summary summarises the current state of a worker in a table. This is taken from the other worker fields.

The action button displays the current action. The options are calculated from the worker status and the status rules.

The events field displays Worker events.