What is filtering in Infor Process Automation?

A filter is an additional level of grouping for users and workunits that get assigned to them. If you think of a Task as a group of users who will be assigned a work item, then a Filter is an additional way of refining a Task so that only the appropriate persons are assigned to the work.

A simple example is the best way to explain. Suppose you have defined the following Tasks at your site.

  • President

  • Vice President

  • Division Manager

  • Department Head

For most tasks, this structure works well for your company. However, when it comes to approving purchase orders, which is a work item assigned by processes to Department Heads, it does not work as well. This is because it does not make sense for all Department Heads to be routed purchase orders for all departments in the company. One way you can get around this is to create Filters for the Department Head Task.

You might the end up with a structure that looks like this:

Department Head (Task) Department (Filter) User
ApprovePO Accounting Jerry
ApprovePO HR Mary
ApprovePO HR Harry

The Department Head Task is assigned to Jerry, Mary, and Harry but each user has a uniqe Department Filter.

When a process that includes the ApprovePO with Filter Accounting executes, only Jerry will see it.

When a process that includes the ApprovePO with Filter HR executes, only Mary will see it. Likewise with the Sales Filter and Harry.

If a process that includes a task ApprovePO but which does not contain a filter executes, Jerry, Mary, and Harry will all receive it.