Workflow FAQ

How do I install the Flowable Eclipse Designer?

See the Install Flowable BPMN 2.0 Designer instructions.

In case the update site is temporarily down:

  1. Download the Flowable plug-in from the Flowable GitHub repository.
  2. In the menu bar, click Help → Install New Software....

  3. In the Available Software window, click Add.

  4. In the Add Repository window:
    1. Click Archive.
    2. In the Repository Archive window, select the flowable-designer-<version_number>.zip file you have downloaded.
    3. In the Add Repository window, provide a Name, for example Flowable BPMN 2.0 designer.

    4. Click Add to close the Add Repository window.
  5. In the Available Software window, select the Flowable BPMN Designer check box.
  6. Leave the other check boxes as they are and click Next.

  7. Review the installation details and click Next.
  8. Review, accept the license agreements, and click Finish.
  9. If you are prompted with a security warning, click Install anyway.

  10. Click Restart Now to finish the installation.

For more installation instructions, see the Flowable documentation.

What is a form type?

Flowable provides form types to type variables in the forms used by start events and user tasks. For more information about form types, see Form property types.

What is a user expression?

Flowable provides a number of user expressions to indicate candidate users for user tasks, or to use them as an argument in any other expression. For the full list of user expressions, see Candidate user expressions.

What is a business item?

A business item is any item to which a running workflow definition instance is linked and on which that workflow can perform actions. Workflow definitions can be started to handle tasks for one specific business item. That business item uniquely identifies the running workflow definition instance at any moment in time. In Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud, a business item can be an asset, domain or community. Some workflow definitions do not apply to a business item at all. These workflow definitions are global workflow definitions.

For the methods that can be called on a business item, consult the BusinessItem bean or the Workflow beans Java documentation for the BusinessItemBeanV2 Class.

When does the workflow user perform a task?

The workflow user in a packaged hidden user that Collibra uses exclusively to perform certain workflow tasks.

The workflow user performs asynchronous operations, for example when you select more assets and start a workflow. In this case, the workflows are executed by Collibra so all the changes that result are attributed to the workflow user. The same situation is valid when a timer starts the workflow.

If you start the workflow on one resource, the action is synchronous and the tasks are attributed to you.