Designing the Procedure Interaction › Flows › How Flows Are Initiated

How Flows Are Initiated

Each flow is initiated by the source procedure setting an appropriate exit state.

Each transfer flow on a navigation diagram must be associated with one or more exit state definitions that will trigger the transfer. These are called Flows On Exit States.

Each link flow must have at least one Flows On Exit State.

Each link flow must also have at least one Returns On Exit State, with the exception of the client-to-server flows. There is an implied return from the server, and no exit state is necessary. The return flow will complete with the completion of the server procedure.

For a given procedure, only one flow can be associated with each exit state value.

After the destination procedure finishes executing, the Returns On Exit State causes control to be returned to the source procedure.

The use of exit states can be summarized as follows:

• When the logic of a procedure concludes, the value of Exit State is evaluated.
• If this value matches that associated with any flow from the procedure whether it be a transfer, link, or return from a link, the flow is executed.
• If this value does not match any exit state values associated with any flows, you must specify some corrective action.
• The corrective action is appropriate to the procedure implementation. In a client procedure, the exit state message would typically be displayed in a dialog box with the appropriate icon as shown in the following illustration.

  

The CA Gen window manager controls this dialog box and icon according to the message type specified. The message dialog box is modal; that is, it requires an input before proceeding.