Customizing user-defined properties

ActiveVOS provides a generic extension mechanism to extend any object types. The extension mechanism is similar to a UML profile.

You can add multiple user-defined property definitions to object types. Each property set consists of one or more property definitions that include property name, property data type, default value, and description. The supported data types are Enumeration, Real, String, Boolean, and Integer. The default is Enumeration; it also supports Literals (user-added values).

When a new process model is created, ActiveVOS will copy the existing user-defined properties to the model. For each property set, ActiveVOS will automatically create a Property pane with a grid-like user interface.

To customize user defined properties:

1. On the Windows menu, click Preferences.
2. In the left pane of the Preferences dialog, select Business Process->Initial Values->User Defined Properties.
3. Select an object type from the object list box.
4. Click the Add icon above the Properties Set dialog to add a new property set. To remove the selected property set definition, click the Remove icon .
5. To add multiple property definitions to the selected property, use the Add icon in the bottom grid. Use the Remove icon to remove the selected property definition. For example, to add property definitions for a user-defined Activity property set:

• Click the Add icon in the bottom box of the User Defined Properties window to add a new property—Property1. Highlight the property name and rename it to something more descriptive.
• Select the data type. The default is Enumeration. To change it, click in the Type box and a down arrow will appear. Click the arrow and choose the data type you want. Available data types are Real, String, Integer, Boolean, and Enumeration.
• If the data type is Enumeration, you can add Literals (values that you type in). Otherwise, you cannot add Literals. To add Literals, click in the Literals box and then click the button that appears. The Enumeration dialog opens. Click the Add icon to add a literal1 value. With the value label selected; start typing to rename the value. You can also add multiple values at once and rename them later. Use the Remove icon to delete unneeded Literals. When you are finished adding Literals, click OK. The Literals you added are displayed when the cursor moves to the next box.
• For the Enumeration data type, you can specify the Literal to be used as the Default Value. Click in the box, select the down arrow, and select the Literal to use as the default.
• In the Description box, type any additional information to include.