“Delete” activity
“Delete” activity is intended to delete a particular object in Active Directory. The activity allows you to specify the object you want the activity to delete. You can select the object when you configure the activity, or you can configure the activity to select the appropriate object at workflow run time. See Activity target for further details.
“Delete” activity also has a number of configuration settings that are common to CRUD activities:
- Notification Active Roles can notify via e-mail about whether or not the activity has encountered an error condition at run time.
- Error handling Determines whether or not the workflow is allowed to continue if the activity has encountered an error condition at run time.
- “Run as” options Determines the user account under which to run the activity.
- Additional settings Some advanced configuration options that allow you to adjust the processing of the operation requested by the activity.
Activity target
The execution of a CRUD activity results in a request to perform a certain operation on a certain object. For example, an “Update” activity requests Active Roles to make changes to the properties of a certain object, an “Add to group” activity requests Active Roles to add a certain object to particular groups, and so forth. The object on which the operation is requested by a CRUD activity is referred to as the target object of that activity, or simply activity target.
When you configure a CRUD activity, you can use the following options to specify the activity target for that activity:
- Fixed object in directory. The activity target is the given object. You can select the desired object in Active Directory when you configure a CRUD activity.
- Object identified by workflow parameter. The activity target is the object specified by the value of a certain parameter of the workflow. You can choose the desired parameter from the workflow definition when you configure a CRUD activity.
- Object from workflow data context. The activity target will be selected by the activity on the basis of the data found in the workflow environment at the time of executing the workflow. When configuring a CRUD activity, you can specify which object you want the activity to select at workflow run time.
- Object identified by DN-value rule expression. The Distinguished Name (DN) of the activity target is specified by the string value of a certain rule expression. By using a rule expression, you can compose a string value based on properties of various objects found in the workflow environment at the time of executing the workflow. You can create the desired rule expression when you configure a CRUD activity.
The following table helps distinguish CRUD activity targets.
Table 58: CRUD activity targets
Update |
The object whose properties are to be changed. An Update activity requests Active Roles to change certain properties of a particular object. That object is referred to as the activity target of the Update activity. |
Add to group |
The object to be added to the groups. An “Add to group” activity requests Active Roles to add a certain object to particular groups. That object is referred to as the activity target of the “Add to group” activity. |
Remove from group |
The object to be removed from the groups. A “Remove from group” activity requests Active Roles to remove a certain object from particular groups. That object is referred to as the activity target of the “Remove from group” activity. |
Move |
The object to be moved. A Move activity requests Active Roles to move a certain object to a particular container in Active Directory. That object is referred to as the activity target of the Move activity. |
Deprovision |
The object to be deprovisioned. A Deprovision activity requests Active Roles to deprovision a certain object. That object is referred to as the activity target of the Deprovision activity. |
Undo deprovision |
The object to be restored. An “Undo deprovision” activity requests Active Roles to restore a certain object that was deprovisioned. That object is referred to as the activity target of the “Undo deprovision” activity. |
Delete |
The object to be deleted. A Delete activity requests Active Roles to delete a certain object. That object is referred to as the activity target of the Delete activity. |
Notification
You can configure a CRUD activity to subscribe recipients to the notifications of the following events:
- Activity completed successfully. When configured to notify of this event, the activity causes Active Roles to send a notification e-mail if no significant errors occurred during execution of this activity.
- Activity encountered an error. When configured to notify of this event, the activity causes Active Roles to send a notification e-mail if any significant errors occurred during execution of this activity.
The notification settings specify the event to notify of, and notification recipients. When executed by the workflow, the activity prepares a notification message appropriate to the specified event. Active Roles retains the message prepared by the activity, and sends the message to the specified recipients upon occurrence of that event. The notification settings are similar to the notification settings of a Notification activity (see Notification activity earlier in this document).
Error handling
When configuring a CRUD activity, you can choose whether to suppress errors encountered by that activity. The following option is available: Continue workflow even if this activity encounters an error. If this option is not selected (default setting), an error encountered by the activity causes Active Roles to terminate the workflow.
If you configure a CRUD activity so that the workflow is allowed to continue in case of an error encountered by that activity, then you can have the workflow take an appropriate compensation action. This could be accomplished by using an If-Else activity with a branch condition that evaluates the “Encountered an error” execution status of the CRUD activity. Add an If-Else activity following the CRUD activity and configure a condition on an If-Else branch to detect the “Encountered an error” execution status of that CRUD activity. Then, configure that If-Else branch to contain the activities you want to perform the compensation action. As a result, once the CRUD activity has encountered an error, the “Encountered an error” branch condition evaluates to TRUE, causing the workflow to execute the activities intended to perform the compensation action.