Time Pattern TP4: Fixed Date Elements
Fixed Date Elements allow specifying that a particular activity or process instance has to be executed at a fixed date.
Time Pattern TP4: Fixed Date Elements
Also known as
Deadline
Problem
A particular activity or process instance has to be executed in relation to a particular date.
Design Choices
| C | Fixed Date Elements can be applied to different process granularities | |
| a | Single activity (including multi-instance activities) | |
| c | Process model | |
| F | Fixed Date Element can restrict four dates of an activity (process) | |
| a | Earliest start date, | |
| b | Latest start date, | |
| c | Earliest completion date, | |
| d | Latest completion date | |
Solution
A fixed date is attached to the respective activity or process.
Fixed dates can be realized using a timer which starts as soon as the value of the fixed date is known and which expires at the respective date. For example, if for a latest start date the respective activity (process) has not been started before the timer has expired, appropriate exception handling routines may be initiated. Other restrictions can be handled analogously.Context
The value of the fixed date needs to be available before the respective activity or process is enabled.
Examples
- During a chemotherapy cycle the physician has to inform the pharmacy about the dosage of the cytostatic drug until 11am. If the deadline is missed the pharmacy checks back by phone for the exact dosage (escalation mechanism) (Design Choices C[a] F[d]).
- For each paper submitted to a scientific conference three review requests are sent to members of the program committee. Reviews for all submitted papers have to be entered into the submission system by a particular deadline (Design Choices C[a] F[d]).
Related Patterns
TP5 – Schedule Restricted Elements; Similarly constrain possible execution times
Animation
Product Evaluation
We differentiate between supported, partially supported, not supported, and not specified.
If an evaluation object provides support for the particular pattern the supported design choices are listed. If the pattern is only partially supported (e.g., by a work-around) this is indicated by the additional label "*" and if support is not specified this is indicated by the label "?". Missing support is labeled with "-".
| Product/Language | Version | Score | Motivation |
| Microsoft Outlook | 2010 | C[a], F[a,b,d] | partially supported for activities |
| Sunbird | 1.0 | C[a], F[a, b, d] | partially supported for activites |
| Google Calendar | 12.2011 | C[a], F[a*,d] | partally supported for activities |
| Microsoft Project | 2010 | C[a,c], F[a,d] | partially supported |
| BPMN | 2.0 | C[a,b*], F[a,b?,d] | mainly supported |
| IBM Websphere Integration Developer | 6.1 | C[a], F[a,b*,d*] | partially supported |
| WebSphere Lombardi Edition | 7.1 | C[a,c*], F[a*,d] | partially supported |
| AristaFlow | 1.0.1 | C[a], F[b*,d] | partially supported |
| Intalio | 6.0.3 | — | not supported |
| TIBCO Business Studio | 3.4.2 | C[a,c*], F[a,b*,d] | mainly supported |
| Bettini et al. | C[a], F[a,b,c,d] | supported for activities but not for processes | |
| Combi et al. | C[a], F[a,b*,c,d] | supported | |
| Eder et al. | C[a], F[c] | partially supported | |
| Marjanovic et al. | C[a,c*], F[a,b,c,d] | mainly supported | |
| Zhuge et al. | C[a], F[b] | partially supported |