How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Carlos Santander — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 13:59:32 GMT

You can activity chain to both tasks. Given that the preferred task isn't always created, you could have an XOR gateway before the non-preferred task so that, if the preferred task is created, then activity chaining is broken.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Rama Thummala — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 04:32:07 GMT

Jacob Edelman , Here the chained tasks get high priority than normal flow tasks. The one you want view first,enable activity chaining for that task.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

anuyag — Thu, 21 Dec 2017 07:44:11 GMT

If you know which task should be created first then in that case you can use timer event to delay the other task.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

jacobm579 — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:37:21 GMT

I can't answer with 100% certainty, but I imagine that the task which displays is arbitrary according to whichever node is reached first.

Assuming that the underlying problem is that you want the interfaces to execute in order, you could remove the and gate and put the UI tasks in whichever order they are to be shown to the user.

If there are system tasks in the forked process flows that you want to be in parallel, you can join the flows, after completion of those tasks, at a complex gateway that requires n incoming flows to complete before continuing.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Seth Sacher — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:33:05 GMT

With the process chained to both nodes, you would be creating a race condition and there would not be a guarantee of the tasks displaying in any particular order. It sounds like you want User Input Task (UIT) A to be chained, and UIT B available once UIT A is complete and available as a Task in case a user decides to complete UIT B before A on their own.

One solution could be to chain to UIT A and not to UIT B. Create a UIT C that is identical to UIT B and chain it after UIT A is complete. You can also chain UIT B to UIT A assuming UIT A has not been complete. Add logic to automatically cancel whichever UITs have not been opened by this user to avoid creating duplicate tasks.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Jacob Edelman — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:32:36 GMT

This is what I will do, but there is one hiccup - the preferred task is not always created....

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

bryant.st39 — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:29:56 GMT

You could chain the process flow to the preferred task...or use a different gate type to allow the user to select which task to navigate to...or combine some of the logic into the user interface so that you aren't actually moving to the next node in the process model. Why are you using an AND gate if the same user is performing both tasks?

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Colton Beck — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:27:42 GMT

Do they need to be chained? Instead you could have the two tasks assigned normally and the user can then choose from them independently in the Task list.

Or possibly have the one that the business prefers completed first chained and the other one not chained.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Jacob Edelman — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:23:34 GMT

The goal is to have two tasks created that can be completed in any order, but the business prefers one done before the other.

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Colton Beck — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:19:38 GMT

I'm not sure of the answer here, but am curious about the use case. Is this a valid design pattern, or an experiment?

RE: How does Appian determine which Task to show after an AND Node?

Dastagiri Dudekula — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 18:19:15 GMT

Usually the AND gateway forks the flow. All flows creates a task and assigns the task to respective assignee. In this case all tasks are assigned to the same user. There is no determination logic. You can use the timer to delay the flow before reaching the task assignment. Or Since you are assigning the task to same user, try to implement using looping methodology to achieve sequential process.