topic Re: Receive Task vs. Message Intermediate Catch Event in Alfresco Archive

Receive Task vs. Message Intermediate Catch Event

aapthorp — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:51:01 GMT

I've been looking for some guidelines on when to use a Receive Task vs. Message Intermediate Catch Event, but haven't found anything. Does anyone know of any good explanations? The BPMN 2.0 spec highlights similarities but not differences.When looking at these constructs from the point of view of Ac

Re: Receive Task vs. Message Intermediate Catch Event

frederikherema1 — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:45:40 GMT

1) I don't really get you're first question. Can you clarify that one for me,please?

2) A receive-task is an activity that is part of the process. If you want to locate that specific recieve-task, you should use it's ID to look it up. A message is another concept. Although the message-catching-event is an activity of itself, it's the message-definition you're interested in, not the actual activity.

Re: Receive Task vs. Message Intermediate Catch Event

aapthorp — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:14:50 GMT

1) I don't really get you're first question. Can you clarify that one for me,please?

I was trying to figure out the rationale for 'signaling' a Receive Task with a message vs a semantic that is closer to receiving a message.

2) A receive-task is an activity that is part of the process. If you want to locate that specific recieve-task, you should use it's ID to look it up. A message is another concept. Although the message-catching-event is an activity of itself, it's the message-definition you're interested in, not the actual activity.

Understood. The question is why in one case use an id and in the other use a name, it seems inconsistent?

Both points may be 'nit picky' but coming back to my original question I was experimenting with messaging a Receive Task vs. a Message Intermediate Catch Event and spotted the apparent inconsistencies. At the end of the day aren't both wait states, that wait on receipt of a message? Indeed it's interesting that the BPMN 2.0 spec indicates that a Receive Task can be used instead of an event with an Event Gateway.

Re: Receive Task vs. Message Intermediate Catch Event

jbarrez — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:48:21 GMT

Both points may be 'nit picky' but coming back to my original question I was experimenting with messaging a Receive Task vs. a Message Intermediate Catch Event and spotted the apparent inconsistencies. At the end of the day aren't both wait states, that wait on receipt of a message? Indeed it's interesting that the BPMN 2.0 spec indicates that a Receive Task can be used instead of an event with an Event Gateway.

The way I always interpreted it is as follows:
- A receive task is indeed similar to a message wait
- Activiti allows to signal such receive tasks from something external to the engine. This is a remnant from the jbpm heritage. It has nothing to do with a BPMN signal.
- Message exchange in BPMN is really for inter-process communication and not to communicate with external resources.

So at the end of the day I think it is just a matter of taste. In my opinion, I feel a receive task is a bit more easier to understand when I look at diagrams, but that's just probably me.