Step types
A step is the most granular element of your business process and represents a single action. Each step in a process has a type, based on the functionality that the step provides. By using a variety of step types, you can make your cases more interactive and ensure that your business processes include all relevant and necessary actions.
For example, you can include steps that represent actions that users complete, such as providing information on a form, or automations that an application performs, such as sending automated notifications.In a sample scenario, you can use steps in a Mortgage case type to retrieve a customer's financial history, prompt a case worker to calculate a new interest rate, and notify a case manager when the terms of the loan are ready for approval. You choose the step types when you define the case life cycle.
Pega Platform supports the following step types:
- Collect information
Assigns a task, which you define in a form with fields, to a user or work queue. For example, in a Loan request case type, you can add a step to collect users' personal details.
The following figure shows sample design-time and run-time presentation of a Collect information step:
Collect information step 
- Approve/Reject
Assigns a task to a user, typically a manager, to review case information and then decide whether to approve or reject the case. For example, in a case type to review job applications, you can add an Approve/Reject step so that a manager can approve a job candidate. You can provide additional configurations, such as enabling approval by email.
The following figure shows default design-time and run-time presentation of an Approve/Reject step with a text field for notes:
Approve/Reject step 
- Processes
Calls another process from the current process so that you can reuse an existing set of steps instead of repeatedly adding and configuring multiple steps. For example, you can reuse a process to collect feedback in many different case types.
- User actions
Assigns a predefined task to a user or work queue, such as adjusting a goal and deadline, or changing a stage. Resolving this step type requires a human action before a case can continue.
- Automations
Provides preconfigured functionality, such as sending an email or creating a case. Depending on the automation, you can configure additional options for a step. For example, for a step that automatically sends emails, you can apply business logic to define the recipient and provide the subject line and content. For more information about automations, see Adding an automated step to a process.
- Form steps
Divides long forms into separate screens so that users can focus on more comprehensive units of information at once. For example, when a user completes a form to provide medical information, subsequent screens can display fields to capture their personal details, medical history, and current medical issues. Each set of information can be one screen, and one screen forms one step in the case life cycle.
The following figure shows a run-time presentation of two form steps:
Form steps at run time 
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