The due date for a process instance is the expected date
and time when all activities related to a process instance are complete.
Similarly, an activity due date is the expected completion time for
an activity. You can use due dates throughout Process Portal to
determine if processes instances and activities are on schedule or
whether they are at risk of not completing on time.
In Process Portal,
process instances are listed by due date and marked as at risk or
overdue when the due date expires. To list only those process instances
that are due on a certain date, in a specific time frame, or that
are overdue, you can use process instance due dates as search filters
in saved searches. Administrators and members of the instance owners
team can change a process instance due date after the process instance
is created if, for example, they want to bring the instance back on
track.
Tasks are listed by due date. Task due dates and the projected
path are also used to calculate the expected completion time for a
process instance. Administrators can change task due dates in Process Portal. If
projected path management is enabled for the process, authorized business
users can change the due date for individual tasks and the overall
process instance.
How due dates are calculated
IBM® BPM calculates
due dates at run time. The due date calculation is based on the start
date of the process instance or the runtime task, and the values specified
in
Process Designer for
the due-in time, and the work schedule properties. Default values
are available for all properties. These values are stored in the
99Local.xml configuration
file. Administrators can customize the default values for the properties
in the
100Custom.xml configuration file. For
information about the
100Custom.xml configuration
file, see
The 100Custom.xml file and configuration.
- Due-in time
- The expected length of time required for an activity or an entire
process instance to complete. If the value is specified in days, the
length of a day depends on the time schedule; it equals 24 hours or
1440 minutes only if you specify a 24x7 time schedule. For performance
reasons, do not specify a due-in time greater than 800 hours, minutes,
or days because such values result in multiple checks of the time
and holiday schedules. Instead, use a JavaScript expression to directly
set the due date, which avoids these checks. You can also use a JavaScript
expression to specify a fixed date. In this case, work schedule settings
are ignored.
Attention: The due-in time is handled differently
for processes and activities:
- Processes
- The default due-in time for process instances is 8 hours. You
can specify a different time in days, hours, and minutes. For example,
a due-in time of 2 days, 4 hours, and 30 minutes means that after
a process instance starts, it is expected to run for this length of
time.
- Activities
- The default due-in time for activities is 1 hour. You can specify
a different time in days, hours, or minutes. If the due-in time is
in days, you can use the field to the right of the Days field
to specify the start time for the due date calculation. For example,
if you specify 1 day and a time of 11:00, the runtime task is due
at 11:00 the day after the task starts.
- Work schedule
- The time schedule, time zone, and holiday schedule properties
determine the business hours that users are available to complete
work. You can specify work schedule values for individual processes
and activities or keep the default values. If you use default values
for an activity, the values for the corresponding process settings
are used.
- Time schedule
- Normal business hours. For example, if you expect business users
to be available Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, you can use the
predefined 9AM-5PM M-F time schedule.
- Time zone
- The time zone in which process instances or activities run. For
example, if business users who work on tasks are located in California,
you can use the US/Pacific time zone. The default time zone for due
date calculations is Central Standard Time (CST). If you use the default
time zone, and it differs from your system time zone, you might get
unexpected results when due dates are calculated or when you use the
JavaScript tw.system.calculateBusinessDate() method
to calculate business dates.
- Holiday schedule
- A list of dates that are exceptions to the normal time schedule.
If you use a JavaScript expression to define a holiday schedule, enter
either a string (or string-generated JavaScript) or a JavaScript expression
that returns a TWHolidaySchedule variable. If you
use a string, then IBM BPM looks
up the holiday schedule by name according to those rules. If you use
a TWHolidaySchedule variable, the holiday schedule
is inserted. To view the parameters for the TWHolidaySchedule variable,
open the variable in the System Data toolkit.
For an example of how to use JavaScript expressions
to dynamically set work schedule properties, see Creating and managing time and holiday schedules.
Examples
The following tables show examples
of due date calculations for both activities and process instances.
In all examples, the system time zone and the time zone in the work
schedule is Central Standard Time (CST).
Example: Definition of a business day
If you
specify 9AM-5PM M-F for the time schedule and 24 hours or 1440 minutes
for the due-in time, the activity or process instance is expected
to take 3 business days to complete, because a business day contains
only 8 hours of available work time. However, if you specify a 24x7
time schedule, a business day corresponds to a 24-hour day, and the
runtime task or process instance is expected to take a calendar day
to complete.
Table 1. Business day definitions| Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
|---|
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1440 |
Minutes |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
24 |
Hours |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1440 |
Minutes |
24x7 |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
24 |
Hours |
24x7 |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
24x7 |
None |
Thursday, 2017-03-02 10:00 |
Example: Due-in time is outside normal business hours
If
the result of adding the due-in time to the start date is outside
normal business hours, the remaining hours and minutes are added to
the beginning of the next business day.
Table 2. Due-in time outside
normal business hours| Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
|---|
| Friday, 2017-03-03 16:15 |
60 |
Minutes |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 9:15 |
| Friday, 2017-03-03 16:15 |
1 |
Hours |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 9:15 |
| Friday, 2017-03-03 16:15 |
1 |
Days |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 16:15 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
9AM-5PM M-F |
2017-03-02 |
Friday, 2017-03-03 10:00 |
Example: Start date is outside normal business hours
If
the start date is not a business day, the due date calculation starts
at the beginning of the next business day.
Table 3. Start date
outside normal business hours| Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
|---|
| Saturday, 2017-03-04 10:00 |
60 |
Minutes |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
| Saturday, 2017-03-04 10:00 |
1 |
Hours |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
| Saturday, 2017-03-04 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Tuesday, 2017-03-07 09:00 |
| Wednesday, 2017-03-01 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
9AM-5PM M-F |
2017-03-01 |
Friday, 2017-03-03 09:00 |
Example: Due-in time includes days, hours, and minutes
If
you specify days, hours, and minutes as the due-in time, the time
is handled differently for processes and activities.
Table 4. Due-in
time with days, hours, and minutes| Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Hours and minutes |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
Type |
|---|
| Monday, 2017-03-06 10:00 |
1 |
Days |
10:30 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Wednesday, 2017-03-08 12:30 |
Process instance |
| Sunday, 2017-03-05 10:30 |
1 |
Days |
10:30 |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Tuesday, 2017-03-07 09:00 |
Activity |
- For processes, the value of the hours and minutes is added to
the elapsed time to give an expected duration of 1 day, 10 hours,
and 30 minutes.
- For activities, the start day is the day the runtime task was
created and the hours and minutes value denotes the start time for
the due date calculation. Because the start time is on a Sunday, the
calculation starts at the beginning of the next business day.
Example: Time zone differs from system time zone
You
can specify a time zone in the work schedule that is different from
the system time zone. For the due date calculation, the start date
of the process instance or task is converted to the specified time
zone. The result of the calculation is converted back to the system
time zone. In the following example, the system time zone is set to
Central European Time (CET / UTC+1) and the time zone used for the
due date calculation is Central Standard Time (CST / UTC-6).
Table 5. Different time zones| Start date |
Due-in value |
Due-in unit |
Time schedule |
Holidays |
Due date |
|---|
| Monday, 2017-03-06 12:00 |
1 |
Days |
9AM-5PM M-F |
None |
Tuesday, 2017-03-07 16:00 |
- The start date is converted to CST: Monday, 2017-03-06 05:00.
- Because the start date is outside normal business hours, the due
date calculation starts at the beginning of the next business day:
Monday, 2017-03-06 09:00.
- One business day is added to the due date calculation for the
due-in time: Tuesday, 2017-03-07 09:00.
- The due date result is converted back to CET: Tuesday, 2017-03-07
16:00.