Integrating with CA Workflow › How to Configure CA Workflow Approval and Fulfillment › Events, Rules, Actions, and Process Definitions

Events, Rules, Actions, and Process Definitions

CA Service Catalog provides events, rules, actions, and CA Workflow process definitions for various purposes. This topic focuses on how events, rules, actions, and process definitions are used for handling the complete process of approving and fulfilling user requests (approval and fulfillment).

Updates in CA Service Catalog r12

All CA Workflow rules, actions, events, and process definitions were updated in CA Service Catalog r12 to be more efficient and robust. If you are upgrading to CA Service Catalog from a previous release and you have not already begun using the new rules, actions, events, and process definitions, follow this section to help you get started.

CA Service Catalog r12 included several enhancements to the main functional elements of CA Workflow, as follows:

• All rules, actions, events, and process definitions were updated to be more efficient and more robust.
• The built-in rules, actions, events, and process definitions are suitable for most implementations and can typically be used as-is. Therefore, very little customization is permitted in built-in rules, actions, events, and process definitions. However, you can optionally create new rules, actions, events, and process definitions based on the built-in ones and modify them as needed.
• For legibility and readability, rule names were updated. Rules names now have spaces between words, and words like All and None were removed. Also, abbreviations in rule names were expanded to complete text, as follows: WF is now Workflow; HW is now Hardware; SW is now Software, and so forth.

  Finally, the rules were expanded to a complete phrase describing the situation to which the rule applies. For example, the WFNoneFulfillment is now to When Category is None and Status is Pending Fulfillment. Similarly, WFHWCheckAvailability was renamed to When Category is Hardware and Status is Pending Fulfillment. Moreover, the WFSWCheckAvailability rule was renamed to When Category is Software and Status is Pending Fulfillment. Other rules were renamed in a similar manner.

• Process definitions have an incremented version number, to prevent accidental overwriting of any customizations that you may have made to your existing process definitions.
• Both the updated rules and updated process definitions are disabled by default, to prevent any accidental or unintended results involving your existing setup. When you are ready to use the updated rules and process definitions, enable them manually, one at a time.

To optimize the benefits of the CA Workflow enhancements, begin using the most recent rules, actions, events, and process definitions as soon as possible after you have installed and configured CA Service Catalog.

Updates in CA Service Catalog 12.6

For information about updates to events, rules, and actions in CA Service Catalog r12.6, see the Release Notes.