Defining Workflow Assignment Deadlines

As pointed out by Al, deadline settings within process properties relate to the whole process.

I still wasn’t sure how this worked out in practice so I made a few tests. These are the conclusion I have reached so far, based on those tests. Once again PTC seem to have dropped a chapter out of the documentation.

The “Skip”, “mark complete” and “reassign” settings are shown in both cases as check boxes. In standard UI design this means they can be selected independently. In this case they should really be presented as radio buttons because you can only pick one from three.

From the Task Properties Deadline Tab

Deadline from start of activity and start of parent process mean what they say here.

Mark complete

1. 
   
2. Assignment is shown as EXECUTED in process
3. 
   
4. Work item is deleted
5. 
   
6. Process path stops at that point unless there is a transition from the assignment which fires on “complete”. The complete exit transition type is not available if the assignment has routing, which would cause process path to stall, potentially the whole process if not managed.
7. 
   

Skip

1. 
   
2. Assignment is shown as NOT EXECUTED in process
3. 
   
4. Work item is deleted
5. 
   
6. 3. Process path stops at that point unless there is an exit transition from the assignment which ifires on “skip”. Caution required
7. 
   

Reassign

1. 
   
2. Works as expected
3.