About Task Names and Task Type IDs

Task Type Name. You specify this value when the task is created, and it can be modified later as desired. When you implement a new task from a process model, the step name is used for the task type name. It is possible to create two or more task types with the same name; for more information, see About Duplicate Task Names below.

The task type name appears in Designer (for example, in the Solutions view and on the editor tabs) and in all locations of the My webMethods interface where the task type name is identified.

Task Type ID. This name is used by both My webMethods and Software AG Designer to identify a task programmatically. It cannot be modified after it is assigned.

The task type ID is displayed in the General Information area of the task editor Overview tab in Designer and in the task information when the task is viewed from the Task Configuration table on the Task Engine Administration page:

Note:
The task type ID is subject to the Always use GUID for new Task Type ID preference (for more information on setting this preference, see Setting Task Development Preferences). When you select this preference, Designer uses an automatically generated globally unique identifier (GUID) as the task type ID when the task is created. An example of the type of GUID that is automatically generated is: 1436DB52-6E63-311A-5D03-DD3E141EF483.

When the Always use GUID for new Task Type ID preference is not selected, you have several choices when you are creating a new task. You can:

Accept a task type ID based on the project name and task name. In this case, a default name of [ProjectName].[TaskName] is entered in the task type ID box. This solution may not be possible if you are creating task types with duplicate task type names.

When you implement a new task from a process model, a GUID is always automatically generated. Each task type ID must be unique within the Eclipse workspace you are working with. If the task type ID is not unique with the workspace, Designer will not allow you to create a task.

Important:
Designer does not check for uniqueness across multiple workspaces. If you are developing tasks across two or more workspaces, you must ensure that each task you create has a unique task type ID regardless of the workspace in which it is located. If you create tasks that share a task type ID in different workspaces, you will experience problems when the tasks are published to the same My webMethods Server. Specifically, the most recently published task type will overwrite any existing task type with the same task type ID. Use of the generated GUID is recommended to greatly reduce the possibility of duplicate task type IDs.

In some instances, it may be necessary to create two or more task types with the same task type name. For example, multiple process models might contain a user task step named “Cancel Order”, but, to accommodate different conditions in the order processing workflow for different departments, a different task type is implemented and invoked for each process model.

Programmatically, this is not a problem because the Task Engine tracks each task type by its task type ID, not its task name. However, the existence of duplicate task type names in the My webMethods user interface has two major ramifications:

You will encounter problems when you publish task types with duplicate names unless you take the task editing precautions described below. Specifically, the most recently published task type will overwrite any existing task type with the same task type name.

Duplicate task type names could be potentially confusing to task users. This would be especially true if multiple custom task inboxes are present, all with identical names.

Whenever you create a task type with a duplicate name, and that task type contains a task application root page as part of the interface, before you publish the task type, you must use the task editor to manually rename the task application root page to make it unique among all tasks deployed to My webMethods Server; otherwise, the most recently deployed duplicate task type will overwrite the existing task application pages. This will also ensure that custom inbox page names will be unique. For information about modifying the task application root page, see Renaming a Task Root Page.

In addition, the Advanced tab of the My Inbox and Task List Management pages enable a user to filter the task results by task type name. In the event of task types with duplicate names, the list will contain an entry for each duplicate name, potentially making it difficult for the user to select the desired task. To alleviate this problem, the user can hover the cursor over a task name entry in the list; this displays a tooltip that contains the task type description text entered by the task developer as well as the unique task type ID.

Designer uses the user task step name (label) to create the task type name when you implement a new user task from within the process modeler. When you add a new user task step to a process, the default behavior is to label the step as “Taskn”, where n is a numerical identifier.

Note that it is quite easy to create task types with duplicate names because of this behavior. Any number of processes can have a user task labeled “Task3”, and if you make no changes to the task type name, you will obtain duplicate task names. Although Designer allows this (see About Duplicate Task Names above), you may be creating confusion for task users by unnecessarily creating duplicate names. In each case, give careful consideration to the resulting task type name.

You can change the display name of the task in both the process editor and in the task editor. These names do not have to match, as the task is programmatically tracked by the task type ID. However, best practices recommend that you keep the display names synchronized.

In the process editor, you can modify the task name of the user task step on the process canvas and on the General page of the Properties view. You can also select an existing task type on the step’s Implementation tab; for more information, see webMethods BPM Process Development Help.