At this point, you've learned how to create a workflow for a business process and implement the workflow using the visual modeling environment in process design perspective. You've implemented the workflow for order process. Now you are ready to create the actions in the action design perspective and add them to the forms as buttons. But first, let's understand the difference between activity and action.

What is an activity?

Each step in the workflow is referred to as an activity. These activities could be an automated task, manual task or just a control point for branching decisions. The manual and automated tasks could be accomplished using one or more actions. In the case of manual tasks, the actions are invoked by the users (activity owners) using the buttons provided in the forms. In the case of automated tasks, the actions are invoked using the call action activity in the workflow process design.

What is an action?

An action is nothing but a simple or composite command chain that can be used to perform the tasks associated with an activity. Actions can be built to update entities, search for connected entities, send notifications, define automation tasks (such as email notification), web services and integration with external systems (using SOAP, REST).

Actions perspective can be used to: