HWS Facilitates Workflow Execution

Workflows in BizTalk Human Workflow Services (HWS) are made up of one or more generic operations, called “actions,” and work items, called “tasks,” performed by workflow “actors.” A simple workflow might involve a worker using an “assign” action to request that his supervisor (the actor) review a weekly timecard (the task). In this example, the timecard is an InfoPath form containing the employee’s personnel information, hours worked for that week, and manager’s name. Script code associated with the form allows the user to send the form to HWS as an activation message, thus triggering the workflow (Step 1). The assign action that processes this message creates a separate message, which contains a subset of the employee’s personnel information and the hours worked (Step 2), and sends it to the manager as an e-mail (Step 3). The manager receives and opens the e-mail (Step 4), which contains an attached InfoPath form that the manager uses to approve, deny, or delegate the requested task and update information in the timecard, such as adjusting the number of hours worked.