There are 3 types of Agents used in workflows, all are used in conjunction to find the selected agents for a work item.
Possible Agents are assigned to the task; this is the pool of agents that will be considered later to become an agent of the work item.
Responsible Agents are the agents that are returned from workflow agent definition or the default role of the task. A Responsible agent can only process a work item if they are a possible agent and if they are not an excluded agent.
Excluded agents cannot be an agent of the task even if they are listed as a responsible and/or selected agent. Excluded agents are defined at the workflow level.
A user may find themselves in multiple groups:
This woman is in the pool of Possible Agents but she is not one of the Responsible Agents so she will not be able to process the work item.
This man is in the pool of Possible Agents and he is in the pool of Responsible Agents; however, he is also on the list of excluded agents so he will not be able to process the work item.
The Selected Agentsof the work item will be the ones that are at the intersection of the Possible Agents and Responsible Agents and are NOT included in the intersection of Excluded Agents
Workflow Log Display of Agents
Definition of Possible Agents
The possible agent is defined under 'Additional data' from the task definition. You may define the possible agents as one of the following or of a combination of multiple agent types.
Definition of Responsible Agents
- Another place you can define the Responsible Agents is by defining a default rule in the task definition on the ‘Default Rule’ tab. This default rule will be used if a Role is defined for finding the Responsible Agents is in the workflow definition AND no agents are found AND the rule is not set to error if no agents are found.
- The default rule is necessary for single step tasks (because there is no workflow definition)
- The default rule is seldom utilized
- Only have the ability to add a rule, no organizational objects or user assignment
Definition of Excluded Agents
Excluded Agents are not allowed to process a work item even if they are listed as a possible agent and a responsible agent.
Examples of Excluded Agents:
- 2 approvals are required from a pool of managers; once a manager supplies their approval, they will be listed as an excluded agent so they cannot also supply the second approval.
- A user in a shared services center has the ability to create and approve requests for payment; but can never create and approve the same request for payment. Once the user creates the request for payment, they are now listed as an Excluded Agent so they will not be able to approve their own request.
