Use vacation rules to handle your notifications automatically when you are not available to manage your notifications directly, such as when you are on vacation. You can define rules to perform the following actions automatically when a notification arrives:

• Reassign the notification to another user

  Note: A workflow may include special logic to restrict reassignment of notifications. If so, Oracle Workflow does not apply any vacation rules to reassign those notifications, but simply delivers the notifications to your worklist. See: #HIDE_REASSIGN Attribute.

  Additionally, a notification cannot be reassigned to the process owner who initiated the workflow, nor to the from role for the notification. If a vacation rule would reassign a notification to either of these roles, then Oracle Workflow does not apply the rule, but simply delivers the notification to the worklist of the original recipient. Oracle Workflow also adds a row to the action history for the notification showing that the reassignment was prevented and the rule was not applied. See: From Role and Action History.

• Respond to the notification with a predefined response, or close a notification that does not require a response

  Note: If this notification requires a password-based signature or certificate-based digital signature in your response, you cannot respond to the notification through a vacation rule. In this case Oracle Workflow simply delivers the notification to your worklist. You must use the Notification Details page to submit your response and provide your signature. See: To View the Details of a Notification.

• Deliver the notification to your worklist as usual, with no further action

Use the Vacation Rules page to define your rules for automatic notification processing. Your workflow administrator can also define rules for you. See: Defining Vacation Rules for Users.

A vacation rule can apply to messages of all item types, to all messages belonging to a specific item type, or to a specific type of message belonging to a specific item type. Each time a notification is sent to you, Oracle Workflow tests the notification against your vacation rules. First Oracle Workflow checks whether you have any active rules for that specific message type. If not, it checks whether you have any active rules for that specific item type. Finally, it checks whether you have any active rules for messages of all item types. As soon as it finds a match, Oracle Workflow applies the rule and discontinues any further rule matching.

If a rule reassigns a notification, Oracle Workflow performs rule matching again against the new recipient's list of rules. Oracle Workflow maintains a count of the number of times it forwards a notification to detect perpetual forwarding cycles. If a notification is automatically forwarded more than ten times, Oracle Workflow assumes that a forwarding cycle has occurred and ceases executing any further forwarding rules, marking the notification as being in error.

If you receive a request for more information about another notification, Oracle Workflow applies the same vacation rule that would apply for the message name and message type of the original notification.

• For a reassign rule, Oracle Workflow transfers the request for more information to the specified user with a comment that conveys the rule information. A request for more information cannot be delegated, only transferred, so in this case Oracle Workflow always transfers the request, even if the reassign rule is defined to use delegate mode.

  Note: Responding to a request for more information is not subject to the same security concerns as responding to the original notification, so a request for more information can be transferred to the process owner or the from role if a reassign rule with such a specification applies.

• For a respond rule, Oracle Workflow answers the request for more information with a response informing the requester that you are absent.

• For a deliver rule, Oracle Workflow delivers the request for more information to your worklist as usual.

   To View and Maintain Vacation Rules:

1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page by navigating to your Worklist and selecting the Vacation Rules link.

   The list of your vacation rules includes rules that you defined yourself as well as any rules defined for you by an administrator. A rule's active or inactive status depends on whether the current date falls within the rule's effective dates.

2. To update a rule, select the Update icon for that rule. See: To Create or Update a Vacation Rule.

3. To delete a rule, select the Delete icon for that rule.

4. To create a new rule, select the Create Rule button. See: To Create or Update a Vacation Rule.

   To Create or Update a Vacation Rule:

1. Navigate to the Vacation Rules page and choose to create or update a rule.

   • If you choose to create a new rule, the Vacation Rule: Item Type page appears first. Continue with step 2.

   • If you choose to update an existing rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears. Skip to step 6.

2. In the Vacation Rule: Item Type page, select the item type to which this rule applies.

   • By default, the list of values for the Item Type field displays those item types for which you have previously received at least one notification. Your workflow administrator can also add item types to this list to let you create vacation rules to handle other notifications you may receive in the future.

   • If your workflow administrator has enabled creating generic vacation rules, you can select the All option in the Item Type field. In this case the rule to applies to notifications associated with any item type.

   See: Setting Up Notification Handling Options.

3. Choose the Next button to proceed.

   • If you selected All as the item type for the rule, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears. Skip to step 6.

   • If you selected a specific item type, the Vacation Rule: Notification page appears. Continue with step 4.

4. In the Vacation Rule: Notification page, select the notification message to which this rule applies or select All if you want this rule to apply to all notifications in the selected item type.

5. Choose the Next button.

6. If you choose to update a rule from the Vacation Rules page, choose All in the Vacation Rule: Item Type page, or complete the Vacation Rule: Notification page, the Vacation Rule: Response page appears. The fields in this page vary depending on the item type(s) and notification(s) to which this rule applies. For example, if your rule applies to all item types, you can automatically reassign all the notifications to another user, but you cannot define an automatic response to all the notifications since different notifications may have different response attributes.

7. Enter values in the Start Date and End Date fields to specify the period that this rule should be active. If you leave the Start Date blank, the rule is effective immediately. If you leave the End Date blank, the rule is effective indefinitely.

   Important: Since you can define different rules for the same notification(s) to be effective at different times, Oracle Workflow allows you to define multiple rules for the same notification(s). You should be careful to ensure that rules for the same notification(s) do not overlap in their effective dates. If multiple rules are effective for the same notification, Oracle Workflow picks one rule at random to apply.

8. In the Message field, enter any text that you want to append to the notification when the rule is applied. The comments appear in a special comments field when the notification is reassigned or automatically responded to.

9. Choose the action that you want this rule to perform:

   • "Reassign" - Forward the notification to a designated user.

   • "Respond" - Respond to the message with a set of predefined response values.

     Note: If this notification requires a password-based signature or certificate-based digital signature in your response, you cannot respond to the notification through a vacation rule. In this case Oracle Workflow simply delivers the notification to your worklist. You must use the Notification Details page to submit your response and provide your signature. See: To View the Details of a Notification.

   • "Deliver notifications to me regardless of any general rules" - Leave the notification in your Worklist with no automatic processing. You can define a rule with this action to exclude a certain subset of notifications from a more encompassing rule. For example, suppose you have a rule that reassigns all your notification messages to another user, but you want to exclude a subset of notifications from that rule. To accomplish this, you can define a new rule that applies only to that subset of notifications, whose action is "Deliver notifications to me...".

10. If your rule action is "Reassign", select the type of user or role to which you want to reassign the notifications. Then select the user or role you want within that type.

    Note: The assignee types correspond to the originating system partitions in the Oracle Workflow directory service. See: Setting Up a Directory Service for Oracle Workflow.

    If an administrator has restricted the users to whom you can reassign the notification, then only the values to which you have access appear in the list. See: #WF_REASSIGN_LOV Attribute and Configuring the Oracle Workflow User List of Values.

    Note: A notification cannot be reassigned to the process owner who initiated the workflow, nor to the from role for the notification. If a vacation rule would reassign a notification to either of these roles, then Oracle Workflow does not apply the rule, but simply delivers the notification to the worklist of the original recipient. Oracle Workflow also adds a row to the action history for the notification showing that the reassignment was prevented and the rule was not applied. See: From Role and Action History.

    Then specify how you want to reassign the notifications.

    • "Delegate your response" - Select this option if you want to give the new user authority to respond to the notification on your behalf, but you want to retain ownership of the notification yourself. For example, a manager might delegate all vacation scheduling approvals to an assistant.

    • "Transfer notification ownership" - Select this option if you want to give the new user complete ownership of and responsibility for the notification. For example, use this option if you should not have received the notification and you want to send it to the correct recipient or to another recipient for resolution. A transfer may have the effect of changing the approval hierarchy for the notification. For example, a manager might transfer a notification about a certain project to another manager who now owns that project.

    Important: Your workflow administrator may implement special logic to verify that the role that you attempt to delegate or transfer the notifications to is legitimate or to restrict reassignment of notifications altogether. If so, you may get a warning message to that effect when you attempt to create a reassigning rule.

11. If your rule action is "Respond", set the values that you want to automatically respond with.