Creating a Custom Property to be the Workflow Control Property

The workflow control property must be an enumerated property. In this example, it is a custom property which is substituting for the Status property.

You can create a custom property in StarTeam or in Workflow Designer. You are more likely to create the property from StarTeam because it offers more support for creating custom properties.

Note: The initial default that you set for a new workflow control property is very important if you have existing items to be put under workflow control. For example, if you have been using the application, but without its workflow features, you may have hundreds of items that have not previously been under workflow control. As you create a new property, these existing items acquire the initial default value for that new property. See Changing Workflow Control Property Values Automatically.

  1. In StarTeam, open a project in the server configuration.
  2. Select the Change Request tab.
  3. Select Change Request > Advanced > Customize. The Customize dialog box lists the fields that can be customized.
  4. Click Add. The Add Field dialog box appears.
  5. Type StarFlowStatus to create a custom field with the name Usr_StarFlowStatus.
  6. Type Workflow Status, the name that StarTeam and Workflow Designer will display to users in the Display Name field.
  7. Click Add to enter the first value for this enumerated type. The Add Value dialog box appears. The application reserves the numeric codes from 0 to 99, so this dialog shows numbers starting with 100.
  8. Use the displayed code.
  9. Type “0. Entered” in the Name field.
  10. Click OK.

  11. Repeat steps 7–10 using the following code and name combinations:

    110 1. New

    120 2. PM Evaluation

    130 3. EM Processing

    140 4a. R and D Implementation

    150 4b. Maintenance Fix

    160 5. Testing

    170 6a. Not Implemented

    180 6b. Completed

    190 6c. Reopened

    200 7. Customer Letter

  12. Select “0. Entered” as a default from the Default Value list. This value automatically becomes the value for this field in all existing items for which this field is a property. It does not become the default value for newly created items, unless they are created when APEs are disabled or an APE is used with a disabled workflow.
  13. Click OK.

    Caution: Before you click OK, be sure that the field name and code numbers are the ones that you want. They cannot be changed after you exit this dialog. Later, you can change only the display name and the names of the enumerated values.