Capturing process information and passing it into a workflow

To fulfill requests, most workflow activities pass data to an external system.

Workflow activities expose the required and optional input fields to the process workflow. Those activities can return a response from the external system to inform the status of the activity. The response from one activity can be mapped to the input parameter of another.

As a catalog administrator or internal service supplier, you can enter data directly into an activity's input fields. You can also create process inputs to capture user request data during a service request.

Information captured during a service request

BMC Helix Digital Workplace collects process context and process input information from a service request and a service. This information can be passed to a workflow associated with the service request. 

The following illustration shows how the information is collected and passed to a workflow:

A service request includes details of a service generated from a service request definition. When an end user submits a service request, the following information can be passed to the workflow:

• Process input information—Answers to the questions that are part of the service questionnaires. For more information about questions, see Creating service questionnaires.
• Process context information:
  • Details automatically generated from a service request (for example, a user login name or the email address of the user who requested the service)
  • Information automatically generated from the service request definition:
    • Service profile (for example, ID of the service in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog)
    • Costs and prices (for example, yearly service cost)
    • Service Level Agreements information (for example, service provisioning time)

Before you begin

Open an existing workflow or create a new workflow, as described in Exploring the workflow designer.

To capture and pass information into a workflow 

1. Create one or more of the required process variables:
   
   • To pass information from answers to a service questionnaire submitted by a requester, create process input variables. For more information, see Adding process input variables to a workflow.
   • To pass information from a service request or a service, create process context variables. For more information, see Adding a process context variable to a workflow.
2. Map the created process variables with the input parameters of a corresponding action. For more information, see Using responses from a connected system in your workflow.

Where to go from here

Creating service questionnaires