Your application supports two models for distributing work: worklists and workbaskets. Both contain prioritized lists of assignments.

An assignment records the condition of an open work object within a flow, and the action required (by a user or an external system) for the work object to progress. Assignments are created and prioritized by a flow operating on a work object but are not themselves part of the work object. Assignments have a many-to-one relationship to work objects, as a work object may require multiple actions at any point in a flow.

A worklist, automatically created for each operator ID (user), is a prioritized list of assignments for that user. Worklists are associated with instances of Data-Admin-Operator-ID, and assignments to worklists are instances of Assign-Worklist.

A workbasket is a shared pool of assignments from which users can select work. Workbaskets are instances of Data-Admin-Workbasket, and assignments to workbaskets are instances of Assign-Workbasket.

Assignments can be transferred from a workbasket to a worklist in various ways:

• The system can automatically route assignments to a user’s worklist.
• Managers can transfer assignments to a user’s worklist.
• Qualified users can move assignments from workbaskets to their own worklists.

An application typically has multiple workbaskets to categorize work objects — for example, a service application may have workbaskets for new tasks, assigned tasks, and overdue tasks. See Appendix A, Application-SpecificInformationfor a list of workbaskets in your application.

Worklists and workbaskets function in tandem for more efficient processing and workload balancing. Routing flows distribute assignments to worklists and workbaskets based on factors such as individual or group work schedules, workloads, skills, and service level deadlines.

Additional criteria, such as requiring that users select work from personal worklists before selecting work from a workbasket, can also be implemented.