About Activities

Activities automate processing. Activities contain a sequence of structured steps. Each step calls a method rule or contains a control instruction such as Call or Branch. Each activity has a type that characterizes its purpose and affects which other rules can call it.

The Steps tab contains the logic of the activity. These topics describe this tab:

• Steps tab — Entering when preconditions 
• Steps tab — Entering loops 
• Steps tab — Entering method parameters 
• Steps tab — Entering transitions 

When a requestor session runs an activity for the first time, the system converts information from the activity into Java, compiles the Java, and executes it. Later executions (of the same activity in the same ruleset, version, and so on) reuse the compiled Java.

After you unit test an activity, you can convert the test run into an automated test case or unit test case.

• If you do not have the AutomatedTesting enabled, or if you have it enabled but are using the Automated Rule Testing landing page, the Test Cases tab displays automated test cases for activities. See .
• If you have the AutomatedTesting enabled and are using the Automated Unit Testing framework, the Test Cases tab displays unit test cases for activities. See .

Except for pre-import and post-import activities, do not use an activity for calculations or property validations that you can implement as constraints rules or Declare Expression rules. Use of a declarative rule (rather than an activity) eliminates the need to control how and when an activity executes. The Pegasystems Implementation Methodology approach promotes declarative processing rather than activities when feasible.

Access

Use the Application Explorer to access activities that apply to the work types in your application. Use the Records Explorer to list all activities available to you.

Category

Activities are part of the Technical category. They are instances of the Rule-Obj-Activity class.

Technical category

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