Introduction

Oracle Workflow Notification System can be extended to perform extra validation or processing via PLSQL procedures when the notification is being responded to. These PLSQL procedures are called post-notification functions since they are executed after a notification action such as Approve, Reject, Reassign or Request Information is performed. The standard signature for the post-notification function is

    procedure <procedure_name> (itemtype  in varchar2,
                                itemkey   in varchar2,
                                actid     in varchar2,
                                funcmode  in varchar2,
                                resultout in out nocopy varchar2);

Modes

The post-notification function provides the parameter ‘funcmode’ which will have the following values:

  • ‘RESPOND’, ‘VALIDATE, and ‘RUN’ for a notification is responded to (Approve, Reject, etc)
  • ‘FORWARD’ for a notification being forwarded to another user
  • ‘TRANSFER’ for a notification being transferred to another user
  • ‘QUESTION’ for a request of more information from one user to another
  • ‘QUESTION’ for a response to a request of more information
  • ‘TIMEOUT’ for a timed-out notification
  • ‘CANCEL’ when the notification is being re-executed in a loop.

Context Variables

Oracle Workflow provides different context information that corresponds to the current notification being acted upon to the post-notification function.

WF_ENGINE.context_nid – The notification ID 

WF_ENGINE.context_new_role – The new role to which the action on the notification is directed

WF_ENGINE.context_user_comment – Comments appended to the notification 

 WF_ENGINE.context_user – The user who is responsible for taking the action that updated the notification’s state

WF_ENGINE.context_recipient_role – The role currently designated as the recipient of the notification. This value may be the same as the value of WF_ENGINE.context_user variable, or it may be a group role of which the context user is a member.

WF_ENGINE.context_original_recipient – The role that has ownership of and responsibility for the notification. This value may differ from the value of the WF_ENGINE.context_recipient_role variable if the notification has previously been reassigned. 

Example

Let us assume there is an EBS transaction that can only be approved by a certain people thus any attempt to transfer or delegate such notification should be allowed only to users SPIERSON or CBAKER. The way to implement this functionality would be as follows:

  • Edit the corresponding workflow definition in Workflow Builder and open the notification.
  • In the Function Name enter the name of the procedure where the custom code is handled, for instance, TEST_PACKAGE.Post_Notification
  • In PLSQL create the corresponding package TEST_PACKAGE with a procedure named Post_Notification, as follows:

    procedure Post_Notification (itemtype  in varchar2,
                                 itemkey   in varchar2,
                                 actid     in varchar2,
                                 funcmode  in varchar2,
                                 resultout in out nocopy varchar2) is
      l_count number;
    begin
      if funcmode in ('TRANSFER','FORWARD') then
        select count(1) into l_count
        from WF_ROLES
        where WF_ENGINE.context_new_role in ('SPIERSON','CBAKER');
              --and/or any other conditions
        if l_count<1 then
          WF_CORE.TOKEN('ROLE', WF_ENGINE.context_new_role);
          WF_CORE.RAISE('WFNTF_TRANSFER_FAIL');
        end if;
      end if;
    end Post_Notification;
  • Launch the workflow process with the changed notification and attempt to reassign or transfer it. When trying to reassign the notification to user CBROWN the screen would like like below:

Notification transfer error

Check the Workflow API Reference Guide, section Post-Notification Functions, to see all the standard, seeded WF_ENGINE variables available for extending notifications processing.