Workflow qualifications

Qualifications in active links, filters, and escalations enable you to define the data condition that causes the workflow component to take action.

You can use qualifications to check values in fields, the amount of time that has passed since a specified event occurred, and many other factors. For example, a qualification might check whether the priority of a request is High or Critical or whether the day is a weekend day.

Qualifications with active links and filters work differently from qualifications with escalations:

• Active link and filter qualifications control which actions, if any, are run for the current request. For example, an active link can run actions whenever a specific field is filled in (execution option), or it can run actions whenever the field is filled in and the value in the field is invalid (qualification).
• Escalations are run whenever the scheduled time arrives. The qualification is an essential part of most escalations, not simply a refinement. It determines the requests on which the primary ("if") escalation actions are run. Without a qualification, the primary actions are run on every request (record) in the form to which the escalation is attached. For example, if an escalation simply sent a notification every hour (execution option), the notification would be meaningless. A meaningful escalation, however, might check every hour (execution option) whether three or more hours have elapsed since a request was submitted and the request is unassigned (qualification), and then send a notification listing the unassigned requests to a manager. If no requests meet the qualification, the escalation might specify alternative ("else") actions that are executed once, such as sending the manager a notice that all requests comply with the assignment rule. For an illustration of how qualifications are used in escalations, see Workflow-actions-and-execution-options.

For filters, the qualification can check the value of a field in the database, in the current transaction, or both. This makes it possible to check whether the value of the field is changing. For example, if you have a business rule that service desk requests can be closed only if they have been fixed, a filter could check all transactions that change the status of a request to Closed. If the database value of the status is Fixed, the request can be modified; otherwise, the change is not allowed.

 Keywords in qualifications

A keyword is a variable whose value is defined by . Keyword names are uppercase and enclosed in dollar signs. For example, $USER$ represents the name of the user who is currently logged in, $TIMESTAMP$ represents the current date and time, and $OPERATION$ represents the operation currently in progress.

Keywords are used to build qualifications. Keywords can be used almost anywhere a qualification can be defined or a value specified, for example:

• Defining qualifications for search menus and for workflow. For example, workflow can check the value of the keyword $OS$ to ensure that the operating system can run a process that you specify in workflow.
• Specifying a value in the Set Fields action.
• Defining searches and macros.

For a complete list of keywords, see Keywords.