7 Using Siebel Workflow

This chapter provides introductory information about the Siebel Workflow tool, and also explains how to discover and monitor Siebel Workflow targets.

About Siebel Workflow

Siebel Workflow is an interactive software tool that enables an organization to automate handling of workflow processes. Workflow uses as its basic model the same processes that organizations use in their sales, marketing, and service departments that determine business workflow. You can use Siebel workflow to promote consistency and adherence to processes through the automatic enforcement of business policies and procedures.

Workflow is comprised of two key constructs:

Workflow Policies, which trigger actions
Workflow Processes, which define everything from guided user interface navigation to integration business flows

The engine is comprised of the following six server components. The first three handle Workflow Policies, and the last three handle Workflow Processes:

Generate Triggers (GenTrig) — Generates triggers on the database, which initiate actions when a condition specified through a Workflow Policy is met. GenTrig is run as a batch job after Workflow Policies are updated.
Workflow Monitoring Agent (WorkMon) — Executes Workflow policies. Workflow Monitor Agent monitors Workflow Policies and executes actions after the policy conditions are met.
Workflow Action Agent — Processes requests logged in the action request table (S_ESCL_ACTN_REQ) for a policy group and invokes all actions linked with the Workflow Policy being processed.
Workflow Process Manager — Acts as an interpreter to execute workflow processes.
Workflow Process Batch Manager — Version of Workflow Process Manager that initiates Workflow Processes in batch mode.
Workflow Recovery Manager — Polls the Workflow engine to check workflow instances running on the server. The Workflow Recovery Manager recovers crashed instances and resumes instances that have been waiting beyond a due date.

Discovering and Monitoring Siebel Workflow Targets in Grid Control

The Siebel Workflow target is automatically discovered when the Siebel Enterprise is discovered and added to Grid Control for monitoring. Siebel Workflow is shown as a link in the General section of the Siebel Enterprise Home page in Grid Control. You can click the link to monitor the health of the Siebel Workflow target and also view details about its processes and component groups.

Note:

If you attempt to discover Siebel Enterprise in Grid Control when the Siebel Workflow component group is disabled in the Siebel configuration, the discovery happens successfully, but the Siebel Enterprise Home page does not show the Siebel Workflow target link in the General section.

If you enable the Siebel Workflow component group later in the Siebel configuration and want to add it to Grid Control for monitoring, on the Siebel Enterprise Home page of Grid Control from the General section, click Update Now. The page refreshes and shows the link for the Siebel Workflow target. You can click it to navigate to the Siebel Workflow Home page and monitor its processes and component groups.

After the Siebel Workflow target is discovered, you can monitor its availability status, view the processing rate of workflow process and policy instances, view alerts generated, and monitor its processes and components groups. You can also access the All Metrics page of this target to view a list of metrics collected for it.

Figure 7–1 shows the Siebel Workflow page.

Figure 7-1 Siebel Workflow Page

Graphic shows sample data on Siebel Workflow page.