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Chapter 8. When Do I Use an Activity Block?
An activity block is a construct that allows you to group several activities together.
Its major functions are:
To reduce clutter at a higher level. This lets you have a cleaner big picture at
upper levels of your process.
To allow a loop. The activity block can have an exit condition, so the entire
block is repeated until particular conditions are met. This gives you a “do until”
construct for a group of activities.
Consider using a block when you have the above needs and when you have at
least three activities to include in it. You can make a single activity loop by
specifying an exit condition for the activity itself. If an activity exit condition fails,
that activity is returned (in a ready condition) to the work list of the user who
performed it.
8.1 Performance and Capacity Considerations
There is not much overhead in using an activity block. The cost incurred is for
evaluation at the beginning and end of the block itself. It differs from a subprocess
in potential database space usage. The block is always included in the instance at
the time it is created. The next section explains how a subprocess differs in this
aspect.
Copyright IBM Corp. 1996, 1998 15