Hi Alan,
I do not want to nitpick, but what you refer to as ‘the
battle for resources’ should be considered in the larger context of what-should-WE-work-on-first. I
see your point of wanting to organize your inbox, but this is distinct from the
task priority in the greater context of a process, and the priority should not,
therefore, be modified in the more personal context of an individual’s
inbox; for that you would need another property.
I think it is important to see the potential issues resulting
from the so-called ‘clash of interests’ and to note that, if we are
not careful, the intended priority--and thus the overall expected progress of
the process--can be affected. Again, I don’t believe that, based on their
personal inbox preference, individuals (Potential Owners--the keyword here is ‘potential’)
should modify the priority of a task which is not intended solely for them.
Regarding Task Owners, I think you bring up a good example and
we should talk about this on today.
I suppose you can always interpret the term ‘priority’
to mean a range of things, but as I see it defined in the spec and when I look
at the problem from the process perspective, I think potential owners should
not be able to modify task priorities.
Regards,
Alireza
From: Luc Clément
[mailto:luc.clement@activevos.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 6:39 AM
To: Rickayzen, Alan; Gerhard Pfau; Alireza Farhoush
Cc: bpel4people@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [bpel4people] BP-73: Priority of a Task and Potential Owner
Privilege (1/3)
Replacing “NEW ISSUE” with “BP-73” in
the subject – please respond to this new thread to help better track
discussion on this issue
From: Rickayzen, Alan
[mailto:alan.rickayzen@sap.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 03:55
To: Gerhard Pfau; Alireza Farhoush
Cc: bpel4people@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [bpel4people] NEW ISSUE: Priority of a Task and Potential
Owner Privilege (1/3)
Hi Gerhard, Alireza,
Priority, in the context of human-task, is about the battle for
resources, hence attention. And sorting/filtering the inbox is the principle
instrument for this (what-should-I-work-on-first).
Agreed? Or have I overseen something?
The clash-of-interests is that a task stakeholder can raise the
priority of their task above the priority of other tasks for which they are not
responsible or even interested in. I'm not against the task stakeholder doing
this, I'm just saying the only neutral people able to juggle priorities
according to what tasks are competing for which resource are the business
administrators and the task owners so they at least need this right as well.
In addition, in the same way as a task owner can suspend a task
after, say, talking to a customer they should also be able to adjust the
priority.
Best regards,
Alan Rickayzen
Alloy Product Manager
SAP AG
Hasso-Plattner-Ring 1
69190 Walldorf
T +49 / 6227 / 7-45567
M +49 / 160 90820152
E alan.rickayzen@sap.com
From: Gerhard Pfau [mailto:GPFAU@de.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday 17 April 2009 14:59
To: Alireza Farhoush
Cc: Rickayzen, Alan; bpel4people@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [bpel4people] NEW ISSUE: Priority of a Task and Potential
Owner Privilege (1/3)
Hi
Alireza and Alan,
I agree with
Alireza's reasoning for not allowing potential owner or owners of a human task
to change its priority. The priority defined in WS-HT is the priority of the
task as defined by the modeler, potentially altered by the business
administrator or stake holder.
Alan, I also
agree that In practice there will be the need for people to specify sort
criteria for ordering the tasks in their task lists according to their personal
needs. Alireza's example for the potential owners in my mind demonstrates that
using the human task priority field for this is not really possible, at least
not without affecting other people (which I assume we would not want to).
Therefore IMO while the personal sorting scenario is important this is
something that should be addressed separately, preferably on the task list
client using mechanisms out of band for WS-HT.
Best regards,
"Make
everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein
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From:
|
"Alireza
Farhoush" <alireza@tibco.com>
|
To:
|
<alan.rickayzen@sap.com>
|
Cc:
|
<bpel4people@lists.oasis-open.org>
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Date:
|
04/16/2009
05:22 PM
|
Subject:
|
RE:
[bpel4people] NEW ISSUE: Priority of a Task and Potential Owner Privilege
(1/3)
|
Hi
Alan,
I
am not sure where the conflict of interest lies. Perhaps you can elaborate.
The
primary concern of Task Priorities is that tasks are processed according to their
envisioned priority as intended by the task stakeholder/administrator.
In
certain areas, authorization is, and should be, a concern; Table 6.1.5,
‘Operation Authorizations,’ defines the required authorizations.
Also,
as I stated earlier, multiple potential owners of a task may change the
priority of a task according to their own work queue and not to the overall
progress of the process; this will affect the intended assigned priority.
Furthermore, a task priority may be low from the perspective of one potential
owner but high from the perspective of another. How do you reconcile this
difference? Limiting the authorization to task stakeholders or business
administrators can prevent potential problems.
Regards.
Alireza
From: Rickayzen, Alan [mailto:alan.rickayzen@sap.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 10:19 AM
To: Alireza Farhoush; bpel4people@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [bpel4people] NEW ISSUE: Priority of a Task and Potential Owner
Privilege (1/3)
Hi Aliriza,
It seems to me that it there will
be conflicting interests between:
1. business administrator
2. process stakeholder
3. task owner
4. task stakeholder
5. task stakeholder's boss juggling
different tasks and activities.
In my opinion all should be able
to change the priority since a clash of interests cannot be avoided and each
needs the flexibility.
The whole point of the
priority-change is the transparency that this supports not the authorization so
I'd prefer keeping it as is.
Best
regards,
Alan
Rickayzen
From: Alireza Farhoush [mailto:alireza@tibco.com]
Sent: Monday 23 February 2009 16:33
To: bpel4people@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [bpel4people] NEW ISSUE: Priority of a Task and Potential Owner
Privilege (1/3)
I am
following up on the discussion we had during our last meeting. I have outlined
below a change (1/3) to the WS-HumanTask Specification Version 1.1 document
that I proposed.
Regards,
Alireza
Farhoush
TARGET:
WS-HumanTask Specification Version 1.1 CD02
DESCRIPTION:
In Section
3.1, ‘Generic Human Roles’, in the 4th paragraph, a statement
reads:
“...potential
owners can influence the progress of the task, for example by changing the
priority of the task.”
Shouldn’t
changing a task priority be performed only by the stakeholder or the business
administrator? Multiple potential owners could independently modify the
priority as they see fit (and perhaps never acquire a task).
PROPOSAL:
Limit the
privilege of changing task priority to Task Stakeholder and Business
Administrator.