How to use Dynamic Roles in OpenText MBPM version 9 [Quick Tip]

Sometimes we get questions from our customers to very fundamental functionality in OpenText MBPM. One of the questions we received recently was around the topic Dynamic Roles and today I post this as a Quick Tip for Metastorm.

What is a Dynamic Role?

The Metastorm BPM Designer incorporates several methods to assign process users to roles. Users can be assigned via group roles where the Metastorm Administrator is tasked with associating the users to the deployed roles via the Metastorm Administrative Tools or leveraging the powerful dynamic roles which the values of the users are based on business object variables, therefore no need to manually assign users to roles. Dynamic roles are based on formulas e.g. based on a SELECT statement or a process variable.

Default Dynamic Roles in Metastorm Designer

The following dynamic roles are set up automatically by Designer:

• "Everybody" is used to specify all users registered in the MBPM database
• "Metastorm Administrator" is used by the individual(s) with authority to administer the MBPM system, and should always be assigned to at least one registered user. This role may also be used by the process designer when creating and testing a process.
• "Originator" identifies the user who created a folder
• "Access" identifies all users who hold the role identified in each process' Limit access to property
• "Metastorm Guest" is used to allow access by anonymous users
• "To Do list" is used to indicate all users on whose To Do lists a folder currently resides
• "Watch list" is used to indicate all users on whose Watch lists a folder currently resides

Create a new Dynamic Role

1. Open your solution in OpenText MBPM Designer
2. In the Ribbon’s Components group, click the new Role button to open the roles grid
3. Enter the name of the role, select the scope and specifiy the formula e.g. SelectSql(new MetastormDefault(),"SELECT CommonName FROM EMPLOYEES WHERE Grade = 'Director'") or Process1ProcessData.txtManager
4. Assign the new Role to Process Stages and Actions
5. Deploy the project and create different folder to test the new dynamic roles

I hope you find this OpenText MBPM/Metastorm BPM Quick Tip useful. Feel free to leave a comment below.