Workflow Errors – Some Simple Mistakes that we can Avoid

Recently I met couple of consultants to fix some workflow issues. During my analysis I found that those issues are related to the simple mistakes made at design time.

As it is not advisable to publish the actual workflow, I will try to explain issues I have encounter during my 1-day project at customer site with a dummy workflow

First Question that the Developer ask me -

1.Whey the Assign Workflow BUTTON in Transaction TYPE UI in OM is not enable for LINES –

Well answer is we don’t assign workflow to Order Lines Transaction Types. We only Assign Line Type workflows to Order Header Transaction Type workflow , that the reason t is not enable for order lines.

2.Activity WAIT-1 in process xxxxxxx has no OUT transition.
Customer has added the Wait activity in the workflow, and when they validate the workflow from Transaction type UI , they were getting this Error.
Answer – If you don’t need an activity, then why you want to add that in workflow. Since this activity has no INPUT and OUTPUT transaction system was throwing this error on validation.


NOTE - whenever you made changes in the workflow, pls. verify it. File > verify.

We simply remove this activity as that was not required.

3.Process zzzzzz is missing activity FULFILL_LINE
Error message clearly indicate that FULFILL_LINE activity is missing from workflow. When I look into the workflow, I found that customer has customized the Oracle Sales Order line workflow, they have remove the DEFEER_FULFILL and FULFILL_LINE activity, but still has Standard INVOICE_INTERFACE activity for invoicing.

Please note that if you want to invoice your Order with standard INVOICE_INTERFACE you should have FULFILL_LINE activity in the flow. Since it was missing when they try to validate the Workflow they were getting the Error (Process zzzzzz is missing activity FULFILL_LINE).

4.Wrong/bad OR Operations - Though System was not throwing an error, but when I look into it, it was a BAD example of OR operations

Analysis – they added the Wait activity in the flow, but there was no Input or Output Transaction from this activity.

In the Above Process “Test Activity 2 “ have 2 DEFAULT outcomes
1. “Test Activity 2 “
2. OR
That means after execution of “Test Activity 2 “ , workflow will progress to “Test Activity 5 “ as well as “OR” activity.

Once it reaches OR activity it will not wait for ““Test Activity 4 “ to complete (because it is OR), and it just progress to next activity.

Well there is nothing Wrong in it, but my suggestion is, if we don’t care for “Test Activity 4 “ to complete then why to add OR operation here, why not just REPLACE it with the DEFER_ACTIVITY, that way we will reduce one complete activity from the FLOW (as per ct. workflow , plus my example).

Well customer like my solution and made the required changes.




I found this book very interactive and Interesting for beginners as well as for experts.