Business Processes with APEX 24.2 Workflows: A Practical Demo

Create our Workflow

To create a new workflow:

• Select your application.
• Navigate to the Workflows page, and under Workflows and Automations, select Workflows.
• Create a new one.
• In the workflow tree, select Workflow.
• Under Identification, specify the workflow Name and the user-friendly workflow Title.
• Before defining each activity, we’ll create some parameters as inputs for the workflow. APEX passes parameters to the workflow instance when the workflow starts. A parameter applies to all versions of a workflow, and the value of a parameter does not change during the workflow runtime.

We’ll create four input parameters, which will be sent (set) from the Page that will call to our Workflow. These parameters are:

• Now, we’ll create some variables, which will be essential for our workflow to behave correctly. These variables are inputs specific to the workflow version, and their value may change during the workflow runtime:

Later on, we will see that the ID of the newly created task instance will be stored in the variable V_APPROVAL_TASK_ID, so we could use it if necessary.

Now, let’s start creating the different activities:

Activity 1 (Holiday Request to PENDING)

• Identification
  • Name: Holiday Request to PENDING
  • Type: Execute Code
• Source
  • Location: Local Database
  • Language: PL/SQL
  • PL/SQL Code:

Activity 2 (Notify Employee)

Before continuing with this step, we will create the “secondary” workflow to send notification emails to employees and approvers:

• Repeat sections 1 to 4 of the “Create our Workflow”.
• Under Identification, specify the workflow Name “Send Email to Users” and the user-friendly workflow Title.
• As we did with the Main workflow, we’ll create some parameters as inputs for the workflow:

1st activity: Registrer operation in Logs:

• Set the following properties:
  • Identification
    • Name: Holiday Request to PENDING
    • Type: Execute Code
  • Source
    • Location: Local Database
    • Language: PL/SQL
    • PL/SQL Code:

2nd activity: Send email:

• Select the option “Send E-Mail” and set the following properties to the activity:
  • Identification
    • Name: Send email
    • Type: Send E-Mail
  • Settings
    • From: &APP_EMAIL.
    • To: &P_EMAIL_ADDRESS.
    • Subject: &P_EMAIL_SUBJECT.
    • Body Plain Text: &P_EMAIL_BODY.

3rd activity: Register another operation in Logs:

• Set the following properties:
  • Identification
    • Name: Register EMAIL sent successfully
    • Type: Execute Code
  • Source
    • Location: Local Database
    • Language: PL/SQL
    • PL/SQL Code:

Now, we can continue with the main workflow and create a new activity to “Invoke the workflow” developed previously:

Set the following properties:

• Identification
  • Name: Notify Employee
  • Type: Invoke Workflow

• Settings
  • Definition: Send Email to Users.
  • Wait for Completion: Set to ACTIVE this switch.

Set the following parameters that will be used by the workflow invoked:

This activity is similar to Activity 2, but sets the following properties:

Set the following parameters that will be used by the workflow invoked:

Activity 4 (Approve/Reject Holiday Request)

This activity is a “Human Task”, so we must create a task before. To do that, we must go to Share Components \ Task Definitions, and “Create” a new one:

Task Definition

• Outcome: V_TASK_OUTCOME
  • This variable stores the task’s outcome, indicating whether it has been Approved or Rejected. It applies solely when the task is used as a Workflow activity.

• Advanced
  • Static ID: ApproveRequest

Let’s continue creating the rest of the activities:

Activity 5 (Update Holidays Request)

Once the approver has approved or rejected the Holiday request, we are going to update the user’s request by creating the following activity:

• Identification
  • Name: Update Holidays Request
  • Type: Execute Code
• Source
  • Location: Local Database.
  • Language: PL/SQL
  • PL/SQL Code:

Now we need to evaluate the variable V_TASK_OUTCOME to determine if the holiday request has been APPROVED or REJECTED by the owner (approver). To do this, create the following activity:

• Identification
  • Name: Approved?
  • Type: Switch
• Switch
  • Type: Check Workflow Variable.
• Compare
  • Compare Variable: V_TASK_OUTCOME

Activities 7a and 7b

Next, we’ll add two “Invoke Workflow” activities for both cases APPROVED and REJECTED to email the holiday requester to notify the approval or rejection of the request.

Both “Invoke Workflows” are very similar, but changing some values:

To connect the Switch “Approved?” to Activities 7a and 7b, you must connect them by adding two operators:

• “is equal to” APPROVED, for the Approval Notification Email to Employee (Holidays APPROVED).
• “is not equal to” APPROVED, for the Rejection Notification Email to Employee (Holidays REJECTED).

Call to our Workflow from Holidays Requests form

The user logged in to the application will apply for holidays, and one row will be added to the NVS_DEMO_VACATION_REQUESTS table, without specifying any STATUS, so this column will be empty (NULL value) after the new request is saved.

After this process, we must “Start” the workflow created above so that all the Business Process is launched, this way, the Approval user can approve or reject the holiday requested by the user.

Start Workflow

You must set the corresponding items from the page to the parameters Employee ID, End Date, Holiday Request ID and Start Date of the Workflow.

At this point, we can create a report so that the Approver can review all the current requests and approve/reject them. This report makes a join with the following tables/views:

• NVS_DEMO_VACATION_REQUESTS
• APEX_TASKS
• APEX_WORKFLOW.GET_WORKFLOWS

The query of this report is:

As you can see, I’ve shown a lot of columns. Most of them may not make sense to show in a real case, but I wanted to illustrate a bit the amount of information available to manage.

I’ve created a couple of links in this report:

• Request ID: By clicking on this ID, the approver can access the details of the Holiday request so that they can approve or reject it:

Approve:

In both processes, the Task ID Item will point to the APEX task.

• Workflow ID: By clicking on this ID, the user can see the current state of the Holiday request in a diagram representation.

Following, we can see two diagrams. The left one means the Holiday request is still PENDING approval or rejection, and the right one reflects that the holiday request has already been APPROVED.

Conclusion

With this practical vacation request example, we have covered the fundamental concepts of Workflows in Oracle APEX 24.2, from task creation to automating notifications and approvals. While Workflows may seem complex at first, APEX’s declarative approach makes it easy to define efficient and scalable processes with minimal development effort.

This simple workflow sets the foundation for implementing more advanced business process management scenarios. As you explore additional features, such as integrating external data or customizing notifications, you’ll see how Workflows can significantly enhance operational efficiency in your organization.

If you need assistance with implementing Workflows in APEX, feel free to contact us. We’re here to help you automate and optimize your processes!

Documentation

• Managing Workflows and Tasks (Version 24.2)
• Creating a Workflow