Figure: Select Search for Processes or Activities
If you like to search for processes or activities by technical criteria and descriptors, go to the Process Search view in the Business Control Center perspective.
In the Search For drop-down list select if you want to search for processes or activities:
Figure: Select Search for Processes or Activities
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.
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. Click the calendar icon on the right side of the field to open
the calendar dialog ( 
).
The State field offers the following possible states:
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.
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 chapter Working with Process Definitions of the Stardust Online Documentation - Modeling Guide Working with Process Definitions of the Modeling Guide 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.
Figure: Click to show auxiliary processes.
Note the following states:
= Filter On = the
auxiliary processes are not shown in the search criteria.
= Filter Off =
the auxiliary processes are shown in the search criteria.You can specify the process priority as filter criteria. By default, the search is performed for All priorities.
Figure: Priority
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.
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.
Figure: Case Owner Field
In the Activity Criteria section you can choose the following filter criteria:
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.
Figure: Start the Search.
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. Click the calendar icon on the right-side of the field to open
the calendar dialog
and choose a date.
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. Refer to section Authorization for Activities Authorization for Activities for detailed information on the Read Activity Instance Data permission and the section Authorization for Process Definitions of chapter Authorization in the Stardust Online Documentation - Modeling Guide Authorization for Process Definitions of the Authorization chapter in the Modeling Guide for detailed information on the Read Process Instance Data permission 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).
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:
: non-interactive activities (disabled by default)
: interactive activities (enabled by default)
: auxiliary activities (disabled by default)Clicking one of these icons shows (icon enabled) or hides (icon disabled) the according activity types. By default, interactive activities are displayed.
In the State field, choose the state of the activities to search for. The following states are provided in the drop-down list:
Figure: Choose the State of the Activities.
The Criticality drop-down list contains each currently defined criticality label. By default, All is selected.
The following criticality categories are provided by default:
Figure: Choose the Criticality.
Criticality categories can be defined in the Criticality Configuration View. Refer to chapter Criticality Configuration View for details.
To search for an activity directly via its OID, enter the activity OID in the Activity OID field.
Figure: Search via Activity OID
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.
Figure: Search via Performer
Please note that the search is per default case-sensitive with the exception of the first letter. You can change to case-insensitive search by setting the property Carnot.Client.Search.CaseSensitive in your carnot.properties file to false.
In this section, you can filter the list of process instances by the descriptor values defined as IN data paths in the selected process definition.
If you search for processes, descriptors that are used by all the selected processes (except the Case Process) are displayed with a search entry field. Note that the Case Process is not included in the selected processes check. If the Suppress Display of Blank Descriptors in Common Tables option is selected in the Configuration Panel then the descriptor that have no value are not displayed in the Descriptor column.
The according data path declared as descriptors are displayed. Refer to the chapter Working with Data Paths of the Stardust Online Documentation - Modeling Guide section Descriptors of chapter Working with Data Paths for detailed information on the usage of descriptors.
Figure: Enter Descriptors as Search Criteria
You can enter a search string to match the descriptors you like to use as filter criteria. Refer to section Entering a Descriptor Search Filter for details on using the descriptor search.
Figure: Using a wildcard for the search.
In case more than eight descriptors are present, a scroll bar is provided to scroll through all available descriptors.
Figure: Scroll through descriptors.
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.
In the descriptors entry field, enter a search pattern you want the descriptors to be filtered by. 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.
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.
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.
For details on the columns and functionality of process tables, refer to chapter Process Tables.
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.
Figure: Processes Result Set
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. For a detailed description on the columns and functionality of the activity table, refer to chapter Activity Tables.
Figure: Selected Activities
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.
You can specify the filter criteria as:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Figure: Process with Common Descriptors and a Case
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. |
The search result for cases displays the case root processes in the search result.
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.
Performance issue and timeout may occur when searching for processes including cases. It might happen that the total count is not available in the summary of the search result table due to an internal exception or the total count exceeding the maximum value.
In that case, the summary displayed at the top of the table changes to avoid any issues.
For example, the summary will be changed from
32 record(s) found, displaying 10 records(s), from 1 to 10. Page 1 / 4.
to:
Many record(s) found, displaying Page 1.
For the pagination, only Previous and Next icons are displayed under the search result table. The icons for First/Last page and for Fast Forward and Rewind will not be displayed. For example:
Figure: Processes Search result with too many records
This has the following limitation:
If the last page data size is exactly equal to pageSize then the end of the
records situation can not be identified,
and the next page action will be active. Upon clicking,
it will display the next page with no data, and this time the next page action will be disabled,
as end of records situation could be detected.
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 adjusant to the Search For text box. The timestamp is displayed in the tooltip text.
Figure: Timestamp of Oldest Process Instace
The following video demonstrates how to search for activities and processes in the Stardust Portal:
Note that this video was created in an earlier Stardust version than the current. Some functionality or design might have changed meanwhile.
You find more training videos for related and other topics on our Self-Learning Trainings Stardust Wiki page.