You can view a workflow associated with an engineering work order or business interaction as an ordered list of activities. From this list, you can manage the workflow by starting, updating, and completing activities, among other actions.

Many of the actions you can take on an activity in the list can also be done from the Activity Summary page.

To view a workflow as an activity list:

• In the Summary page of a business interaction or engineering work order that has an associated workflow template, click the Activity Details tab.

You can view the overall progress of a workflow as a Gantt chart. Each activity is shown as a separate line, with the length of the bar representing its duration. Activities that have been identified as critical are shown in red. Completed activities are in bold.

You can change the way the Gantt chart displays the workflow. You can also change the dependencies of activities in the workflow.

To monitor progress in a Gantt chart:

• In the Summary page of an engineering work order or business interaction that has an associated workflow template, click the Gantt Chart tab.

The Activity Details tab displays the Activities list. The Activities list displays all the activities in the workflow in chronological order, with columns that show specific items of information.

The Gantt Chart tab displays the workflow as a table with an associated Gantt chart. The table is collapsible. When collapsed, it shows information for the workflow as a whole. When expanded, each activity is listed in a separate row with corresponding information displayed. The calendar portion of the chart includes bars that reflect the duration of each activity (or of the workflow as a whole).

You assign activities to the users who will complete them. After you assign a user to an activity, only that user and the project manager can modify the activity.

The users from which you can select are determined by the permissions assigned to users in Oracle Enterprise Manager. Task specifications can also restrict which users can be assigned to activities. The specification can include a list of user groups to which assigned users must belong. You set up user groups in WebLogic Server Administration Console. See "Unified Inventory Management System Administration Overview" in UIM System Administrator's Guide for more information about assigning permissions and defining user groups. If email notification is set up in UIM, users receive notification when they are assigned an activity and also when the activity is ready to be worked on. See the section "About Email Notification"“About Email Notification" in the chapter, “Managing Workflow" in UIM Concepts and the chapter, "About Notifications" in "Extending Notifications" in UIM Developer's Guide for more information about email notifications.

To assign a user to an activity:

1. In the Activity Details tab of an Engineering Work Order or Business Interaction page, select an activity.

2. Click the Assign icon in the toolbar.

   The Assign Activity dialog box appears.

3. In the Assign User field, select a user.

4. Click Save.

   The dialog box closes and the assigned user appears in the Assigned User column for the selected activity.

You can assign a user to multiple activities at a time from the Activity Details tab of the Engineering Work Order Summary page.

The users from which you can select are determined by the permissions assigned to users in Oracle Enterprise Manager. Task specifications can also restrict which users can be assigned to activities. The specification can include a list of user groups to which assigned users must belong. You set up user groups in WebLogic Server Administration Console. See "Unified Inventory Management System Administration Overview" in UIM System Administrator's Guide for more information about assigning permissions and defining user groups. If email notification is set up in UIM, users receive notification when they are assigned an activity and also when the activity is ready to be worked on. See the section “About Email Notification" in the chapter, "Managing Workflow " in “Managing Workflow" in UIM Concepts and the chapter, "Extending Notifications" in UIM Developer's Guide for more information about email notifications.

To assign a user to multiple activities at a time:

1. In the Activity Details tab of an Engineering Work Order or Business Interaction page, select one or more activities.

2. Click the Assign icon in the toolbar.

   The Assign Activity dialog box appears.

3. In the Assign User field, select a user.

4. Click Save.

   The dialog box closes and the assigned user appears in the Assigned User column for all the selected activities.

You can insert activities into a workflow to reflect work that was not included in the original template or to divide the work processes into different chunks. When you insert an activity, you can select from all the Task specifications for all the activities deployed to UIM.

The activity you insert can depend on the previous activity in the flow or parallel to it.

To insert an activity into a workflow:

1. In the Activity Details tab of an Engineering Work Order or Business Interaction page, select the activity after which you want to insert a new activity.

2. Click the Create Activity icon in the toolbar.

   The Insert Activity dialog box appears.

3. In the Specification field, select a Task specification.

4. In the Name field, enter a name for the activity.

5. In the Duration field, enter the duration of the activity in days.

6. Select the Parallel check box if you want the activity to be worked on at the same time as the activity that precedes it in the workflow.

7. Click Save.

   The dialog box closes and the activity is inserted.

You can associate resources with activities in the Activity Workspace area of an Activity Summary page. Most resources you associate with activities become items in the business interaction or engineering work order to which the activity's workflow belongs. When a resource is not business-interaction-enabled, associating it to an activity does not result in a business interaction item. See "Understanding Business Interaction Content" for more information about business interaction items.

If the Task specification on which the activity is based includes an association with a resource specification, you can create that resource from the Actions menu.

To associate a resource with an activity:

1. Open an Activity Summary page.

2. In the Activity Workspace section, do one of the following:

   To associate a resource based on a related specification:

   1. In the Actions menu, select the name of a specification that has been related to the Task specification on which the activity is based.

      A New page for the relevant entity type appears, with the specification already entered.

   2. Create the new entity normally, and then return to the Activity Summary page.

      The Activity Workspace section includes the new entity. The entity is also added as an item to the parent business interaction or engineering work order.

   To associate a resource not based on a related specification:

   1. Click the Associate button, and then select an entity type.

      A New page for the entity type appears.

   2. Create the new entity normally, and then return to the Activity Summary page.

      The Activity Workspace section includes the new entity. The entity is also added as an item to the parent business interaction or engineering work order.

You can search for telephone number blocks from within activities in the Activity Workspace area of an Activity Summary page.

To search for telephone number blocks from within an activity:

1. Open an Activity Summary page.

2. In the Activity Workspace section, from the Actions menu, select TN Bulk Actions, and then select Telephone Number Blocks.

   The Telephone Number Blocks page appears.

3. Enter the search criteria in the desired fields. Some fields require that you enter text; others allow you to select from lists.

4. In the Block Size field, enter the telephone number block size. This is a mandatory field.

5. Click Search TN Blocks.

   The telephone number blocks that meet your search criteria are displayed in the Blocks Results section.

Project managers keep track of the progress of activities in engineering work orders and business interactions for which they are responsible. To keep this information up to date, you record your progress on an activity as you work on it.

You can update the progress of an in-progress activity and change its duration. Changing the duration of an activity affects the dates for other activities dependent on it.

To update activity progress from the Activity Summary page:

1. In the Activity Information section of an Activity Summary page, click the Edit button.

2. In the Percent Complete field, adjust the slider to the appropriate value.

3. Click Save.

You can start working on an activity when it is in Ready status and it has been assigned to you. An activity reaches Ready status when all the previous activities in its workflow have been completed. When you start working on an activity, you change its status to In Progress.

You can start an activity from the Activities list in the Activity Details tab or from the activity's Summary page.

Completing an activity means that work on it is finished. If the activity has a checklist, all of the checklist items must be completed before you can complete the activity.

Completing an activity means that the next activity (or activities when there are more than one in parallel) changes to Ready status.

After an activity has been completed, you can reopen it for additional work. After you reopen the activity, its status is reset to Ready and you must start it again to make changes.

You can reopen a completed activity from the Activity Details tab or from the Activity Summary page. Reopening activities requires that you have a project manager role and privileges.

Checklists can be associated with activities to provide specific steps that must be completed. If a checklist is associated with an activity, it is created when you start the activity.

As you work, you mark checklist items as complete. You do not have to complete the items in order, but they must all be complete before you complete the activity.

The Activity Summary pages of activities with associated checklists include a Checklist section. Activities with checklist include a checklist icon in the Activities list.

When working with checklists, see the following topics:

• Adding Items to a Checklist

• Editing Checklist Items

• Marking Checklist Items as Complete

Entity bulk operations enable you to create multiple entities and perform various operations on multiple entities at a time, based on the data you provide as input in various tabs in a spreadsheet file. You can create entities and perform entity-specific tasks in bulk using the Automated Bulk Import section in the Activity Summary page.

You can create the following entities by specifying the required information in the spreadsheet file:

• Property location

• Network entity code

• Logical device

• Physical device

• Equipment

• Connectivity

• Network

You can perform the following actions by specifying entity-specific information in the spreadsheet file:

• Associate logical devices, physical devices, and equipment

• Add a shelf in a rack

• Add a card to a slot in a shelf

• Map a physical device to a logical device

• Map a physical device to equipment, and map a physical device to a logical device at the same time

• Map a device interface to a port

• Add connectivities to a network

• Add network nodes

• Add network edges

To create entities and perform entity-specific tasks in bulk:

1. Create an engineering work order. See "Creating an Engineering Work Order" for more information

2. Assign users to activities. See "Assigning Users to Activities" for more information.

3. In the Activity Details tab of an Engineering Work Order page, click a link in the Name column of an activity.

   The Activity Summary page appears.

4. In the Automated Bulk Import section, do one of the following:

   1. In the Field field, navigate to and select a spreadsheet file that contains the required entity information.

   2. Click Download Excel Template to download the sample spreadsheet file in which you can provide the required entity information.

   3. Open the downloaded spreadsheet and update the tabs with data that you want to upload.

      Note:

      In the respective tab of the downloaded spreadsheet, always fill the Action column as Create.

      You can add any number of characteristics to the elements you want to create by adding new characteristic columns in the corresponding spreadsheet tabs.

   4. Save and close the spreadsheet.

5. Click Process.

   UIM processes the input data you provided in various tabs in the spreadsheet file.

You use the Activity Summary page to define the content and status of an activity that is included in a workflow.

See the following topic for more information about summary pages:

• Actions Menu

If UIM is configured to send notifications, you receive emails when you are assigned an activity and when the activity is ready to work. You may receive additional notifications depending on how UIM is configured.

Notifications include a link that takes you directly to the Activity Summary page of the assigned activity.

You can view the activities assigned to you by using the My Group Activities page. The page has these sections:

• The Recent Activity Summary section displays a pie chart that shows the distribution of your group activities by their statuses (Completed, In Progress, Ready, and Pending). Mousing over a section in the chart displays additional information, including the total duration of the activities in the section.

• The Activity Trends section displays a graph that represents the number of activities assigned to your group and the number that have been completed.

• The Activities list displays a scrolling list of all activities assigned to your workgroup, ordered by their start dates. The list includes detailed information for each activity. You can click an activity name in the list to open its Activity Summary page. From the Activity Summary page, you can record your work on the activity and update your status. See "Managing Activities" for more information.

You use the My Activities page to search and view information about activities assigned to you and to record your progress on completing those activities. The My Activities page has three sections, two of which display read-only information.

You can search for activities assigned to you by entering the search criteria in this section.

This section displays a pie chart that shows the distribution of your activities by their statuses (Completed, In Progress, Ready, and Pending). Mousing over a section in the chart displays additional information, including the total duration of the activities in the section.

The Activity Trends section displays a graph that represents the number of activities assigned to you and the number you have completed.

The Activity list displays a scrolling list of all activities assigned to you, which includes detailed information about each. You can click an activity name in the list to open its Activity Summary page. From the Activity Summary page, you perform actions such as assigning users, updating progress, and associating resources.

You can select multiple activities and change their status using Start and Complete icons on the top-right corner of the page. Click the Start icon to move all the activities in Ready state to In-Progress. Click the Complete icon to move all the activities in In-Progress state to Complete.

You use the My Group Activities page to search and view information about activities assigned to members of a work group to which you belong. The My Group Activities page has three sections, two of which display read-only information.

You can search for the work groups that you belong to by entering the search criteria in this section.

This section displays a pie chart that shows the distribution of group activities by their statuses (Completed, In Progress, Ready, and Pending). Mousing over a section in the chart displays additional information, including the total duration of the activities in the section.

The Activity Trends section displays a graph that represents the number of activities assigned to your group and the number completed.

The Activity list displays a scrolling list of all activities assigned to your group, which includes detailed information about each. You can click an activity name in the list to open its Activity Summary page. From the Activity Summary page, you perform actions such as assigning users, updating progress, and associating resources.