Glossary

activity

See task

activity status

See task status

annotation

a note that is added to a workflow to provide supporting information about a workflow or element within the workflow. These notes are for presentation only and are not associated with the run-time workflow instance.

authorization

the process of determining the permissions that particular users have for particular resources. Authorization either permits or denies a specific action on a specific resource, based on the user's identity and on group memberships.

data object

an object that holds the business data that is required to execute workflow tasks.

decision gateway

a type of gateway that controls which sequence flow is executed by evaluating the expression associated with the gateway. Expressions are evaluated at run time. See also gateway.

gateway

a workflow diagram element that controls the execution of sequence flows through a workflow. Types of gateways include logic gateways, merge/fork gateways, and decision gateways.

instance

See workflow instance

logic gateway

a type of gateway that controls which sequence flow is executed by using AND or OR logic. See also gateway.

merge/fork gateway

a type of gateway that enables multiple tasks or sequence flows to execute in parallel. A merge/fork gateway allows multiple sequence flows to converge and individual sequence flows to diverge. See also gateway.

policy

a workflow element that associates event-driven logic with a task or subflow. Policies are usually triggered automatically by an event such as a status change or a timer event.

sequence flow

a connection, typically represented by an arrow, between workflow diagram elements. Sequence flows indicate the order in which tasks are executed.

subflow

a workflow that is a child of another workflow.

swimlane

a workflow diagram element that enables you to group tasks that are assigned to the same participant.

task

a workflow element that associates executable logic with an event such as a status change or timer event.

task status

the outcome of a task in a workflow. The status of a task (for example, Started, Canceled, Accepted) is typically used to trigger the next task.

workflow

a series of tasks, together with the participants and the logic that is required to execute the tasks. A workflow includes policies, status values, and data objects.

workflow definition

a workflow template that has been uploaded to the server and activated. Workflow definitions are used by the SAS Workflow Engine to create new workflow instances.

workflow instance

a workflow that is running in the SAS Workflow Engine. After a workflow template is uploaded to the server and activated, client applications can use the template to create and run a new copy of the workflow definition. Each new copy is a workflow instance.

workflow template

a model of a workflow that has been saved to an XML file.