Creating a Flowset for a line of business

Flowsets are used to modify or extend the way cases are handled throughout their lifecycle. During a case lifecycle, different functions are triggered to execute the processes that are associated with the functions. As a case business analyst, you can create flowsets for the companies to which you have access permissions or create it for the Global company so that it can be used across any company in BMC Helix Business Workflows. Using flowsets you can also extend or override the existing processes as per the business requirements. Additionally, you can grant access to confidential support groups so that they can access the confidential data. Case agents can view the user’s confidential data in a case or a task only if they are a part of the confidential support group for the case and have access to the case. For information about how to grant confidential data access, see To grant confidential data access in a Flowset.

Process of creating Flowsets

The following figure displays the steps that you must perform the following steps to ensure that an appropriate Flowset is applied to cases that are created for a particular line of business:

Creating processes for a Flowset

It is recommended that as a case business analyst, you create processes for a Flowset in the appropriate application library for the particular line of business. For example, you can create a process for the HR Flowset under the HR application library. You can create your own custom processes or use the sample processes provided out of the box with BMC Helix Business Workflows. 

For information about creating processes, see  Defining the application business logic through processes .

For a description of the process designer elements, see  Process designer elements .

For more information about creating custom processes, see To create a custom process by using the sample processes.

For detailed example of a Flowset-specific process, see FAQs and additional resources.

Out-of-the-box sample processes 

A case business analyst can view out-of-the-box sample processes for field ID values and add them as the input parameters for custom processes.

The following table provides details about the sample processes for each function:

 To register processes in the process library

To ensure that you can associate the processes with a Flowset, you must register the processes with the company in the process library. For example, processes for status transition of facilities cases must be registered with the facilities management Flowset.

1. Log in to BMC Helix Business Workflows.
2. Click Settings .
3. Navigate to Manage Flowsets > Process Library.
4. Click Register Process.

5. In Company, select the company for which you want to register the process. Select Global if you want to use this process for a Flowset that is defined for a Global company.

6. In Application Services Library, select the application or library name with which you want to register the process.
7. In Process Name, specify the process that you want to register by selecting the required process from either of the following tabs:
   
   • Task Management Service—Displays all the processes that are created in the Task Management Service. When you hover over a process name, its process ID is displayed.
   • All Processes—Displays processes from all the applications that are deployed in BMC Helix Platform.
   The Process Alias Name field is auto-populated based on the selected process name.
8. Complete the Description field.
9. In Status, select one of the following options:
   • Draft—The process is not ready to use.
   • Active—The process is ready to use.
   • Inactive—The process is deprecated and not in use. 
10. Click Save.

 To define a Flowset

1. Log in to BMC Helix Business Workflows.
2. Click Settings .
3. Navigate to Manage Flowsets > Define Flowsets.
4. Click Add Flowset. 

5. Type a name and description for the Flowset.

   Best practices

   To avoid incorrect mapping on a shared system, BMC recommends prefixing the Flowset name with the company name. For example, when defining the flowset for the facilities Calbro, enter Calbro_Facilities Flowset or for a global facilities flowset, enter Global_facilities Flowset. 

6. In Company, select the company for which you are creating the Flowset. Select Global if you want this Flowset to be available across all companies in a tenant.

7. Complete the Flowset Name and Description fields.
8. In Status, select one of the following options:
   
   • Draft—The Flowset definition is still in progress and not ready to use.
   • Active—The Flowset is ready to use.

   • Inactive—The Flowset is deprecated and not in use. 

     Tip

     You cannot delete a Flowset, but you can change the status of a Flowset to Inactive when you do not want to use it.

9. Save the Flowset.

 To map the Flowset with the categorizations

If a developer has created categorizations for a line of business in the Foundation library of BMC Helix Platform, you can map the flowset with those categorizations. For more information, see Creating or modifying Categorization data . To relate a case to the Flowset-based categorizations, map the Flowset with the categorizations.

1. In the Flowsets Configuration page, click the Flowset that you want to map.

2. In the Edit Flowset Configuration page, on the Manage Categorizations tab, click Associate.
3. Select the categorizations that you want to map with the Flowset.
   For example, for the facilities Flowset, you can map the Phone, Projector, Workforce Administration categorizations.

 To map the Flowset with the processes and functions

To trigger the Flowset-specific processes for a case, map the processes with the flowset. 

1. In the Flowsets Configuration page, click the Flowset that you want to map.
2. In the Edit Flowset Configuration page, click Manage Processes.
3. Click Add New Mapping.

4. In Functions, select the function related to the process. 

   Note

   If your process does not relate to any of the functions in the list, you must add it when creating or modifying processes in the process designer.

5. In Process Name, select the process that you have registered with the company. 

   If you are mapping the process to a Flowset defined for the Global company, ensure that you select a process that has been registered for the Global company.
   For example, map the status transition process for facilities with the Facilities management Flowset.

6. In Process Execution Type, select one of the following options:
   • Exclusive—If you want to run only the Flowset process and not the default process. 
     Example: You want to run the status transition process that you have created for your line of business and not the default status transition process. 

   • Additive—If you want to run both - the default process and the Flowset process.
     The Flowset process runs before the default process. If the Flowset process triggers any other processes within its configuration, these processes are executed first and then the execution of the default process begins.
     For example, you have defined a status transition process for the Flowset. Select this option to run the default status transition process as well as the Flowset related status transition process. The Flowset related process is run before the default process.

     Note

     For the Initialization and Activity Update by Users functions, Process Execution Type is set to Additive.

7. In Status, select one of the following options:
   
   • Draft—The process is not ready to use.
   • Active—The process is ready to use.

   • Inactive—The process is deprecated and not in use. 

8. Save the process mapping.

You can create a case template by using a flowset. You can use the flowset configuration defined in the case template to create a case and trigger the associated processes.

The following video (8:10) explains the process of creating a Flowset for cases:

 https://youtu.be/x4VilKK3QYE

To grant confidential data access in a Flowset

You can grant permission to confidential support groups so that they can access the confidential data. You can grant confidential data access only to support groups, and not to any specific individual, business unit, or department. You can assign read or read and write permission to the support groups. If you copy a case template or a task template, the confidential dynamic fields and confidential data access are also copied to the new template. For more information about confidential data in cases, see Identifying and protecting users' confidential data.

1. In the Flowsets Configuration page, click the Flowset that you want to map.

2. In the Edit Flowset Configuration page, click Confidentiality Access. 
3. In the Support Group Access box, select the support group to which you want to grant confidential data access. 
   

4. If you want to provide write access to the support groups, select the Assign Write Access check box
   

5. Click Add. 

Related topics

BMC Helix Business Workflows for a line of business

Configuring automatic case assignments

Creating approval mappings