Searching for Processes and Activities

If you like to search for processes or activities by technical criteria and descriptors, go to the Process Search view in the Control Center perspective.

Searching for Processes

If you like to search for processes, select Processes in the Search For drop-down list.

Select Process Search
Figure: Select Search for Processes

Selecting Process Search Criteria

In the Process Criteria section you can choose the following filter criteria:

Note that all these fields except Process and Priority are disabled if you choose Activities from the Search For drop-down list.

Search For Processes
Figure: Search For Processes

These fields can be left empty, if they should not to be used as filter. If you want to provide new search criteria, click the Reset button.

To enter the start and end time of the interval, you can use the calendar, which opens if you click on the date entry fields accordingly.

State

The State field offers the following possible states:

State
Figure: Choose the State of the Processes.

In the Process entry field select the processes to be searched for. To include all processes in the search, select All Processes.

Showing and Hiding Auxiliary Processes

Per default, process definitions that are not business relevant are suppressed in the Process drop-down list. These processes are marked as "Is Auxiliary Process" in the modeler. Refer to section Display of chapter Working with Process Definitions in the Business Process Modeling Handbook Display of chapter Working with Process Definitions in the Business Process Modeling Handbook for details.

To switch to show or hide auxiliary processes in the drop-down list, click the Show / Hide Auxiliary Process icon above the list.

Show / Hide Auxiliary Processes
Figure: Click to show auxiliary processes.

Note the following states:

Priority

You can specify the process priority as filter criteria. By default, the search is performed for All priorities.

Priority
Figure: Priority

Case Owner

The Case Owner option is enabled only when the Case Root Processes option is selected from the Hierarchy option. When you start entering a name, a list is provided with all available case owner names matching the typed characters.

Edit Case Owner Field
Figure: Edit Case Owner Field

If you specify the case owner, the End Time (From and To) fields are disabled. If an owner is specified, search is performed for all Case processes.

Case Owner
Figure: Case Owner Field

Viewing Process Search Results

Click the Search button to start the search and open the Processes table.

The Processes table lists the process instances filtered according to the filtering entered as described above.

Processes
Figure: Processes Result Set

For details on the columns and functionality of process tables, please refer to chapter Process Tables.

An additional option to save the search as favorite is provided in the process table toolbar indicated by a star icon Save Favorite. This option is described in section Adding a Search to Favorites.

For detailed information about a specific process, click this process in the Process column to open the Process Details view, which is described in detail in chapter Viewing Process Details.

Searching for Activities

If you like to search for processes, select Activities in the Search For drop-down list.

Select Activity Search
Figure: Select Search for Activities

Selecting Activity Search Criteria

In the Activity Criteria section you can choose the following filter criteria:

Search For Activities
Figure: Search For Activities

Activity searches are dependent upon the selected process criteria. After setting the criteria you can start the search by clicking the Search button in the lower left corner of the criteria section. If you want to provide new search criteria, click the Reset button.

Started / Modify Time (From and To)

The Started (From and To) and Modify Time (From and To) fields determine the start and modify time of the activity time interval to be used as filter criteria. Specify valid date range for the search. These fields can be left empty, if they should not to be used as filter.

To enter the start and modify time of the interval, you can use the calendar, which opens if you click on the date entry fields accordingly.

Activity

In the Activities section, all activities are displayed in alphabetical order, which the logged-in user has the declarative security permissions Read Process Instance Data and Read Activity Instance Data for. These permissions are defined in the modeler for the process definition and the activity accordingly. Please refer to section Authorization of chapter Specifying Activity Properties and section Authorization of chapter Working with Process Definitions in the Business Process Modeling Handbook for detailed information on the Read Activity Instance Data and Read Process Instance Data permissions accordingly.

Choose the activities you like to use as search criteria in the list. To select all activities, choose the All Activities entry (default selection).

Select Activities
Figure: Select Activities to search for.

You can filter the activities displayed to be included or excluded in the activity searches. The following icons are provided to switch between the displayed types:

Clicking one of these icons shows (icon enabled) or hides (icon disabled) the according activity types. By default, interactive activities are displayed.

State

In the State field, choose the state of the activities to search for. The following states are provided in the drop-down list:

State
Figure: Choose the State of the Activities.

Criticality

The Criticality drop-down list contains each currently defined criticality label. By default, All is selected.

The following criticality categories are provided by default:

Criticality
Figure: Choose the Criticality.

Criticality categories can be defined in the Criticality Configuration View. Refer to chapter Criticality Configuration View for details.

Activity OID

To search for an activity directly via its OID, enter the activity OID in the Activity OID field.

Activity OID
Figure: Search via Activity OID

Performer

To search for an activity by the performer name, enter the first few letters in the Performer text box. As soon as you enter the text, the user name is searched automatically and the list is displayed. You can select the performer from the list.

Performer
Figure: Search via Performer

The search is case-insensitive.

Viewing Activity Search Results

Click the Search button to start the search and open the Activities table.

The Activities table lists the activities filtered according to the filtering entered as described above.

Selected Activities
Figure: Selected Activities

For a detailed description on the columns and functionality of the activity table, refer to chapter Activity Tables.

An additional option to save the search as favorite is provided in the activity table toolbar indicated by a star icon Save Favorite. This option is described in section Adding a Search to Favorites.

For detailed information about a specific activity, click this activity in the Activity column to open the Process Details view, which is described in detail in chapter Viewing Process Details.

Descriptors

In the Descriptor section, you can filter the list of process instances by the descriptor values defined as IN data paths in the selected process definitions.

The according data path declared as descriptors are displayed with a search entry field. Please refer to chapter Working with Data Paths of the Stardust Documentation - Modeling Guide section Descriptors of chapter Working with Data Paths for detailed information on the usage of descriptors.

Per default only descriptors that are common for the selected processes are displayed if you select multiple processes. Common descriptors are displayed in one field as described in section Presentation of common Descriptors. You have the option to display all descriptors along with common descriptors by selecting the checkbox Show all.

If descriptors of Case Processes are included depends on the selection in the Hierarchy drop-down list. Please refer to section Searching for Cases for details.

Enter Descriptors as Search Criteria
Figure: Enter Descriptors as Search Criteria

If the Suppress Display of Blank Descriptors in Common Tables option is selected in the Workflow Execution Configuration Panel then descriptors which do not have a value are not displayed in the Descriptors list.

In case of no descriptors or no common descriptors, this is indicated by a message below the Show All checkbox.

No Descriptors
Figure: No Descriptors

In case many descriptors are present, a scroll bar is provided to scroll through all available descriptors.

Scroll Descriptors
Figure: Scroll through descriptors.

Data supported for a Descriptor based Search

Please note that only structured data and primitive data types are supported as data path for descriptors used in the process search. All other data types specified as descriptor cannot be used as descriptor filters.

Enumeration types are displayed with a drop-down list to select the value from.

Filtering for Descriptors

To filter for specific descriptors, enter a filter term in the descriptor search field.


Figure: Filter by Descriptor name

All descriptors which contain the entered term are displayed.

Filtering for Descriptor Values

You can enter a search term as filter criteria to match the descriptors you like to be displayed.

Enter Descriptor as Search Criteria
Figure: Using a wildcard for the search.

Entering a search filter for String types

To filter the search for descriptors of String types, enter a search pattern you want the descriptors to be filtered by in the entry field. You can use the wildcard "*" in combination with string. Note that using wildcards for numbers, even that occur in strings, is not supported. However descriptor based search is possible for structured and primitive data types except boolean field of them. If the field is left empty, all data path are used.

Descriptors
Figure: Enter a Descriptor Search Pattern

All processes matching the descriptor search will be displayed.

Please note that the search is per default case sensitive. You can change to case insensitive search by setting the property Carnot.Client.Search.CaseSensitive in your carnot.properties file to false.

Entering a search filter for Date types

If you like to search for a descriptor of primitive type Date and Time or Date and Time Plus Time Zone, you can enter a time frame accordingly. A From and a To field are provided, where you can select a date. To open the provided calendar, click on the entry fields accordingly.

Search for Date Descriptor
Figure: Searching for a Date descriptor

Presentation of common Descriptors

If you select multiple processes from the Process list which have some common descriptors, the Descriptors pane displays the common descriptors in one field.

Descriptors are common for different processes if their data path Id and access path match. The selected processes do not have to belong to the same model. They can also reference the same data of a provider model. E.g., if a process a in model A references data of the same provider model as process b in model B, descriptors in these processes using this data are displayed in the same field if the Id and data path are the same.

Per default, only common descriptors are displayed. Via option Show All you can determine if all descriptors including common descriptors or common descriptors only should be displayed. Note that this setting is valid for the currently open Search view only. It is not persisted for later sessions.

Note
Filtering for common descriptors is not supported for data cluster configurations that contain data slots only. If you use a data cluster configuration which was created with versions earlier than 9.0.5 and thus do not contain a descriptor slot configuration, you can only filter for a descriptor which points to one data. Please refer to chapter Tuning for Performance via Data Clusters in the Operation Guide Tuning for Performance via Data Clusters in the Operation Guide for details on descriptor slots.

Example

In the following example, two processes, Order Process and Sales Process have a common descriptor CustomerName along with other descriptors.

If we select process Order Process, all descriptors for this process are displayed.

Descriptors of Order Process
Figure: Descriptors of Order Process

In case process Sales Process is selected, all descriptors of process Sales Process are displayed.

Descriptors of Sales Process
Figure: Descriptors of Sales Process

When selecting processes Order Process and Sales Process, the Descriptors field displays for the common descriptor CustomerName.

Common Descriptor
Figure: Common descriptor displayed in one field

If we select checkbox Show All, the Descriptors field displays for the common descriptor CustomerName along with the other descriptors of these processes.

Common Descriptor
Figure: All descriptors displayed for selected processes

If we click Search, the resulting process table includes all process instances of both processes and displays all descriptors.

Resulting process table
Figure: Resulting process table

To filter for a value of the common descriptor, we enter a value in the CustomerName search field.

Enter a value in the common descriptor search field
Figure: Enter a value in the common descriptor search field

Now all process instances, which have this value set for the common descriptor, are displayed in the process table.

Search result with common descriptor filter
Figure: Search result with common descriptor filter

Searching for Cases

Hierarchy

You can specify the filter criteria as:

Hierarchy
Figure: Hierarchy

For more information on descriptors and key descriptors, please refer to the chapter Working with Data Paths in the Stardust Documentation - Developer Handbook. to the Working with Data Paths chapter of the Developers Handbook.

Example Search Criteria

The descriptors criteria changes as per the process and hierarchy filters.

If you select All Processes option from the Process list and Case Root Processes option from the Hierarchy option, the Descriptors pane displays only case descriptors.

Case Root Processes - Descriptors
Figure: Case Root Processes - Descriptors

If you select a process with descriptors from the Process list and Case Root Processes option from the Hierarchy option, the Descriptors pane displays the descriptors of the process and the case to which it is attached.

Case Root Processes - Descriptors
Figure: Process with Descriptors and a Case

If you select two root processes which have some common descriptors from the Process list and Case Root Processes option is selected from the Hierarchy option, the Descriptors pane displays the common descriptors of those two processes and the case descriptors.

The following table displays the search criteria and expected search result:

Selected Process Option Selected Hierarchy Option Case Owner Descriptor Expected Search Result
All Processes (default) All Processes (Default) Disabled Common Descriptors Returns process instances (root and sub-processes) matching search criteria and the cases to which they belong.
Process Definition(s) All Processes (Default) Disabled Descriptors in the selected process definition (or common descriptors if multiple selected) Returns process instances (root and sub-processes) in the selected process definition(s) that match search criteria and the cases to which they belong.
All Processes (default) Case Root Processes Enabled and Blank Case Name, Case Description, + Common Descriptors Returns only cases matching search criteria
Process Definition(s) Case Root Processes Enabled and Blank Case Name, Case Description, + Descriptors in the selected process definition (or common descriptors if multiple selected) Returns only cases matching search criteria.
All Processes (default) OR selected process definition(s) Case Root Processes Enabled and Specified Case Name, Case Description, + Common Descriptors Returns only cases matching Case Owner AND Started, State, and Priority. The End Time fields are disabled and not considered.
All Processes (default) Root Processes (Excluding Cases) Disabled Common Descriptors Returns only root process instances (that are not cases) matching search criteria.
Process Definition(s) Root Processes (Excluding Cases) Disabled Descriptors in the selected process definition (or common descriptors if multiple selected) Returns only root process instances (that are not Cases) matching search criteria.

Viewing Case Search Results

The search result for cases displays the case root processes in the search result.

Case Root Processes - Descriptors
Figure: Process with Descriptors and a Case

The case process details, toolbar actions and actions column for any case process instance are same as for process search result. Note that you cannot perform the Abort Process and Start operation on any case process. For more information, please refer to the Abort Process and Start section of the Case Details View chapter.

Viewing the Timestamp of the oldest Audit Trail Entry

You can view when the oldest process instance was started after archiving audit trail. To view the start time of the oldest process instance, hover the mouse over the information icon displayed next to the Search For text box. The timestamp is displayed in the tooltip text.

Timestamp of Oldest Process Instace
Figure: Timestamp of Oldest Process Instance

Searching in a specified Archive Audit Trail

In case you have added an archive audit trail URL in the Configuration Panel for Process Search, an additional button Search Archive is available to start a search against the specified archive audit trail. Please refer to chapter Defining the Archive Audit Trail URL for Process Search for details on how to configure the URL.

Search Archive Button
Figure: Search Archive Button

Clicking this button starts a search against the archive based on the current search criteria and the results are shown in a separate Process Search view tab.

This tab will be reused for successive archived searches. Note that you have to manually close the process search view from the archived window before launching another archived search from the main Stardust window.

Adding a Search to Favorites

To add your current search to the favorite list click the Save Favorite Save Favorite icon in the toolbar of the process table.

Add Favorite
Figure: Add search as Favorite

The Add Favorite dialog opens with a Name field pre-filled with the favorite name. If the name already exists a -New term is appended. Optionally you can change the predefined name for the favorite worklist.

Add Favorite Dialog
Figure: Add Favorite dialog

In case a favorite search with the proposed or entered name already exists, a message is displayed accordingly. If you do not change the name the existing favorite search with the same name will be overwritten.

Message for already existing name
Figure: Message for already existing name

Once you have added your search as favorite, the icon changes to a filled star Added Favorite.

The favorite searches are displayed in the My Favorites section of the Workflow Execution and the Business Control Center perspective launch panels accordingly.

My Favorites
Figure: Favorite searches displayed in the My Favorites section