The wait activity allows a process to wait for a given time period or until a time limit has been reached. Exactly one of the expiration criteria must be specified. A typical use of this activity is to invoke an operation at a certain time. You typically enter an expression that is dependent on the state of a process.

When specifying a time period for waiting, note the following:

• Wait times cannot be guaranteed if they are scheduled with other events that require processing. Due to this additional processing, the actual wait time can be greater than the wait time specified in the BPEL process.

• Wait times of less than two seconds are ignored by the server. Wait times above two seconds, but less than one minute, may not get executed in the exact, specified time. However, wait times in minutes do execute in the specified time.

• The default value of 2 seconds for wait times is specified with the MinBPELWait property in the System MBean Browser of Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control. You can set this property to any value and the wait delay is bypassed for any waits less than MinBPELWait.