SCENARIO:

I have attached my project file to this post. Basically, what this is, is a slimmed down version of what I want to create.

testForm1-init: an XForm prompting the user for 3 values (a string, an integer and a date value).


On SUBMIT, it should continue on to sending the user the testConfForm1 XForm.

AT THE SAME TIME, the timer should be started (which I think happens). I have currently set the timer to 10 seconds. If testConfForm1 was not submitted, after 10 seconds, the process should continue on to showing the testCompleteForm (eventually i will change this to emailing the user that they have to fill out the testConfForm1 XForm). BUT, this is not the case.


What happens is that the process sticks on the testConfForm1 XForm task and it doesn't move on after 10 secs (if the form wasn't submitted).


What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks in advance.

Katie

I think that the use of the parallel gateway is wrong here. The first gateway is redundant because multiple uncontrolled flows can exit a task and the second gateway synchronises the flows entering it with the result that you experience a wait at the gateway for the event that never happens. see here for a description of workflow patterns
The Gateway will accept multiple incoming Sequence Flow and wait for a Token to arrive from each flow before a single Token will continue past the Gateway.

dfrench - thank you so much for your comments. I see now that the second parallel gateway was syncronizing the two paths to eachother, therefore waiting for both to finish before moving on to the next task.

I have now changed things a bit. I removed both parallel gateways since the first one was moot and the second one was syncronizing things. I have added a field in the last form that is only filled if the 30-second timer finishes before the 2nd form is filled and submitted. And, I have added an exclusive data-based event after my timer. It checks to see if the other path was submitted and "confirm" received a value. If it didn't, it should show the notification form with "Task Note" with the value "NO FEEDBACK SENT IN" (a literal string I added on the timer path). If "confirm" HAS a value, it should not send anything and end there.

I see that the timer does what it is asked (it waits for 30 seconds before moving on) but the notification still only shows up AFTER the second form in the process is completed (the path running parallel to the timer's path). Why is this?

What I want is when the first form in the process is submitted, two things should happen:

1) the 2nd form be available to the user to fill out and submit
2) the timer starts to count down 30 seconds

If the 2nd form is submitted BEFORE the timer finishes, then they get a notification form showing the values they previously filled out and that's it.

If the 2nd form is NOT submitted before the timer finishes, a literal string is assigned to "TASK_NOTE" and the notification form is sent to the user, showing the values s/he entered in the 1st form and the literal string showing up bascially saying that "NO FEEDBACK SENT IN" (meaning the 2nd form was not submitted).

How do I go about doing this?

Thanks in advance.

Katie

PS: I have attached my latest project files.

I could not immediately figure out the usage of gateways to get what you wanted but I will explore exclusive event based gateways further. Perhaps the experts will get in on the act.
I think your approach has the potential to get a little messy and difficult to follow at the business process level and at the tech developer level.

Consider using a timer exception on the business process . I have done that in my version of your project. The final notification is on success rather than timeout (to me that is a better practice in the business process).

Note , as is , you will get some user-hostile responses when a user interacts with a timed-out process. This will need some consideration of error traps.

Here is a variant using the exclusive event-based gateway. To me, the diagram is not so intuitive but it does work as you intended.
Note that the exclusive event based gateway must be followed by intermediate events and the first one of those that 'fires' selects the process flow.

dfrench - thank you SO much for assisting me on this. it is really appreciated. i will go through your files right now.

katie