Orchestrating Human Tasks with Conductor

Human tasks are used when you need to wait your workflow for an interaction with a human. When your workflow reaches the human task, it waits for a manual interaction to proceed with the workflow.

It can be leveraged when you need manual approval from a human, such as when a form needs to be approved within an application, such as approval workflows.

To support human-involved tasks, Conductor offers a set of features:

• User Forms: Used to build forms that can be hosted in Conductor UI.
• Human Tasks API: A suite of APIs that manage the lifecycle of human tasks connected to Conductor workflows.

Creating User Forms

You can compose and host forms to be used in the Conductor UI.

note

A user form must be created only if it is to be hosted within your Conductor cluster. If you are hosting this in an external system, you may not create a user form and may proceed directly with the next step - Defining Workflow.

To create a user form from Conductor UI,

1. From the left menu, navigate to Definitions > User Forms.
2. Click + New Form.
3. Provide a name for the form.
4. Choose the required form layout (horizontal/vertical) and drag and drop the available components to create the user form.
5. While adding the components, you can make the fields mandatory by checking the required button.

• Field Name - This name is filled in the user form section of the workflow definition and is used as the input parameter.
• Label - The name the end-users see while filling out the form.

6. Once the user form is created, you can preview it by clicking the Preview button.
7. Save the form.

Notes

• If you make any changes to the existing user form, you can save it as a new version.
• The user form can also be created using JSON code.

Defining Workflow

To define a workflow from Conductor UI,

1. Navigate to Definitions > Workflow from the left menu.
2. Click +Define Workflow, provide a workflow name, and add a Human Task at the required point of the workflow.

The human task needs to be configured with the following parameters:

Human Task Parameters

Parameter	Description
Task display name	The display name for the human task that appears in the human task execution list. Whenever a workflow containing a human task is executed, the execution status of the human task can be viewed under Executions > Human Tasks from the left menu on your Conductor console. The name specified under this field can be used to identify your human task execution from the Executions > Human Tasks list.
UI template	Choose the user form you have created previously here. Similar to workflows, the user forms can also have different versions. You can also choose the required version. Note: This optional field is used only if the forms are hosted by the Conductor. If you host the forms in an external system, you can leave this field empty.
Assignment policy	Configure the assignment policy here. If you haven’t configured any policy under this field, it’s free for all, which indicates that anyone can pick a particular human task; access to this task is not limited. To add a new assignment, click the +New assignment button: Assign - Choose the user/group type for the assignment policy. It can take the following values: External User - If the user is a non-Orkes user, i.e., residing in an external system, choose this option and provide the user's email ID. External Group - If the group resides outside the Conductor cluster, choose this option and provide the name of the group that resides in the external system. Conductor User - If the task is to be assigned to a user in the Conductor cluster, select this option and choose the user in the next column. Conductor Group - If the task is to be assigned to a group in the Conductor cluster, select this option and choose the group name in the next column. SLA Minute - Specify the duration in minutes for which the human task will be addressed. Set this field to 0 for a non-expiring SLA. Note that setting the SLA to non-expiring (0 minutes) will disable the ability to add a new assignment policy. Note: Multiple assignment policies can be stacked to create a hierarchical structure. For example, in the following setup, if the first group fails to pick the assignment within the specified SLA minutes, the task will be escalated according to the subsequent assignment policy in the order added here.
After assignments	Choose the action to be carried out after the assignment policy is timed out. You can choose any of the following actions: Leave open - This ensures that the human task execution remains open to pick up by anyone once the assignment policy is timed out as per the specified SLA Minute. Terminate - This option terminates the human task, and the workflow fails. If you check the workflow execution, you can see that it failed with a note indicating the same: “Task terminated as no more assignments pending and completion strategy is TERMINATE”. In the Executions > Human Tasks, this instance of the human task would be marked as deleted.
Trigger policy	Choose the trigger policy to be applied. This field is optional. The trigger policy works based on the human task state in the Executions > Human Tasks list. To add a trigger policy, click the +New trigger button. You can choose from the following trigger policies: Pending - If the human task execution is in the pending state, the workflow chosen under the “Start workflow” field is executed. Assigned - Once the human task is assigned to a specific assignee, the workflow chosen under the “Start workflow” field is executed. In progress - Once the human task execution is in the progress state, the workflow chosen under the “Start workflow” field is executed. Completed - Once the human task execution is completed, the workflow chosen under the “Start workflow” field is executed. Timed out - Once the human task execution is timed out, the workflow chosen under the “Start workflow” field is executed. Assignee changed - Once the human task assignee changes (as per the assignment policy or if left open and picked by anyone), the workflow chosen under the “Start workflow” field is executed. Claimant changed - When the claimant of a human task changes (e.g., if the initially assigned user does not claim the task and it remains open, allowing another user to claim it), the workflow specified in the "Start workflow" field will be executed. Start workflow - Choose the workflow to be triggered. Version - Choose the workflow version. In addition, you can include more inputs while starting the workflow by clicking the Additional Inputs button and providing input parameters, correlation ID, and task-to-domain mapping.
Input parameters	If you have created a user form in Conductor, the fields mentioned in the user form will be added as input parameters here by default. You can also pass these parameters as variables from inputs/outputs from tasks/workflows. In addition, you can also add additional parameters here.

3. Save the workflow definition.

Executing Workflow

Now, you can run the workflow from the Conductor UI.

1. From the left menu, click Run Workflow.
2. Choose the workflow to run and provide any input parameters if defined.
3. Click Run Workflow.
4. Once the workflow is run, click on the workflow ID generated.
5. The workflow would be in the RUNNING state.

Completing Human Task / Human Task Executions

Once your workflow execution is initiated, navigate to Executions > Human Tasks.

You have two different views for human task execution based on your permissions to the Conductor cluster.

• Task inbox - As a regular non-admin user, you get the task inbox view, which lists all the tasks assigned to you or left open.
• Admin search - If you are an admin (cluster-admin or the task admin—who created the workflow containing human tasks), you can also have another view: the admin search, which lists all human tasks within the Conductor cluster.

Task inbox

The task inbox view is the non-admin regular user view that lists all the tasks assigned to you or left open (by the assignment policy).

• The executions can be filtered by task name and start time. You can also filter the executions by Available, Completed, or All.
• On the execution page, you can view the human task details, such as the task ID, Name (Task display name specified in the workflow definition), task state, assignee, claimant, etc.

Admin search

The admin search view is available to the cluster admin and the task admin (who created the workflow containing human tasks).

• On the execution page, you can view the human task details, such as the task ID, Name (Task display name specified in the workflow definition), task state, assignee, claimant, etc.

• You can filter the data based on the following parameters:

  • Task names - The human task's name (the Task display name specified in the workflow definition).

  • State - The status of the human task. It can be IN_PROGRESS, PENDING, ASSIGNED, COMPLETED, TIMED_OUT or DELETED.

  • Definition names - This field filters based on the task definition name (the name of the human task in the workflow). It supports multiple entries.

  • Output data search - Used to filter execution based on the output data.

  • Task reference name - Filters based on the task reference name (Each task created has a unique task reference name). This field supports multiple entries.

  • Start time - Used to filter execution based on the task execution time.

  • Input data search - Used to filter execution based on the input data.

  • Full-text search - Used to query the data using a full-text approach. Only “AND” and “OR” are supported.

    note

    The field supports searching all the data within the execution columns based on an “AND” or “OR” query. For an example query like this:

    “loan" OR "cc3d2dc-18d4-11ef-a811-8a584d19ffea" 

    

    The search will return all results that contain either the text “loan” or the specific workflow ID “cc3d2dc-18d4-11ef-a811-8a584d19ffea”. This means it will include results that match either of the criteria. To get results matching both criteria, use “AND” instead of “OR”.

• Filter by actors - Filters based on Claimant or Assignee.

• Actor type - Filters based on the actor, i.e., Conductor User, Conductor Group, External User, or External Group.

  • User/Group ID - Filters execution based on a particular user/group's name.

Claiming Task

The task assignee can claim the task. To do this:

1. Click on the task ID from the executions page & you can view the form details.
2. Click Claim.

Notes

• Select the dropdown arrow adjacent to Claim to override the claim.
• To bypass the task, use the Skip option. Access the dropdown menu under Skip and choose Skip with a reason to explain skipping the task.
• Within this interface, you can also allocate to another user/group through the Assign to a different subject option.

Once claimed, you can update or complete the task. In addition, you can Release the task to remove your assignment so that someone else can claim it.

Once the task is completed from here, the workflow moves to the next step.