“Run as” options for an automation workflow
The “Run as” options determine the user account that the workflow runs under. Click the “Run as” options link on the Workflow Options and Start Conditions page to view or change the account setting. You can choose from the following options:
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The service account of Active Roles: The workflow runs under the service account of the Administration Service that runs the workflow.
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The account of the user who started the workflow: The workflow runs under the Windows account of the user who requested the operation that started the workflow.
All activities within the workflow normally run under the account identified by the “Run as” options for the workflow. However, each activity can be configured to use individual “Run as” options. The property page for the activity contains the “Run as” options link allowing you to override the workflow “Run as” setting on a per-activity basis.
When running under the account of the Administration Service, the workflow activities have the same rights and permissions as the Administration Service itself and thus can perform any tasks allowed for the Administration Service.
When running under the account of the user who started the workflow, the activities can perform only the tasks that Active Roles allows for that user account. The Administration Service processes the activity operation requests as if they were submitted by that user via Active Roles, so the activities have the rights and permissions the user account is given in Active Roles.
Enforce approval
The Enforce approval option determines whether to apply approval rules to the changes requested by the workflow running under a privileged account. When selected, this option causes the approval-pending changes requested by the workflow activities to be submitted for approval regardless of the account under which the workflow is running. Otherwise, the changes are applied without waiting for approval if the workflow is running under the service account of Active Roles, under the account of the approver, or under the account of an Active Roles administrator. You can override this setting on a per-activity basis.
Additional settings for an automation workflow
The additional settings specify whether to stop the workflow if it runs longer that a certain time period. Click the Additional settings link on the Workflow Options and Start Conditions page to view or change the following setting:
- Terminate the workflow if it runs longer than: <time period>
This setting allows you to limit the amount of time the workflow is allowed to run. Use this setting to limit the automation workflow that might take a long period of time to run, causing an inconvenience to the user.
Parameters for an automation workflow
When you configure workflow options and start conditions for an automation workflow, you can set up workflow parameters and assign values to workflow parameters. Parameter values are used by the workflow activities when the workflow is running. An activity may retrieve the value of the desired parameter and perform the action depending upon the parameter value.
By default, the workflow does not have any parameters defined. You can add, modify (edit) or remove parameter definitions on the Parameters page. Once the definition of a parameter has been added to the workflow, you can:
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Assign a value to the parameter: To do this, select the parameter from the list on the Parameters page and click View or change parameter value. The value assigned to the parameter is stored in the workflow definition. The workflow activities can retrieve the parameter value from the workflow definition when the workflow is running.
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Configure the parameter so that the user can set the parameter value when starting the workflow on demand: To do this, select the parameter from the list on the Parameters page, click Edit, and then clear the Don’t show this parameter when starting the workflow on demand check box. Active Roles will prompt the user to set the parameter value when the user starts the workflow on demand. The parameter value supplied by the user will only be used during the current run of the workflow.
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View or change various properties of the parameter: To do this, select the parameter from the list in the Parameters page, click Edit, and then use the options in the Parameter Definition dialog.
Each parameter has a number of properties that define it, including the parameter name, parameter description, syntax of parameter values, a list of acceptable parameter values, whether the parameter accepts a single value or multiple values, and whether the parameter must have a value. The acceptable values can be determined either by a static list of values or by using a script. In the latter case, the script calculates the list of the acceptable values each time the workflow is started. A script can also be used to assign a value to the parameter. The script calculates the value each time the workflow is started.
For more information about workflow parameters, see Configuring workflow parameters.