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Each function activity and event activity has a cost associated with it. The cost is a value representing the number of seconds it takes for the Workflow Engine to execute the activity. If you do not know how long it takes for the Workflow Engine to perform the activity, you can enter an estimated cost and update it later as you accumulate more information about its performance. Generally, you should assign complex, long running activities a high cost.

The valid range for cost is 0.00 to 1,000,000.00.

Attention: Although the cost is entered and displayed in seconds in Oracle Workflow Builder, it is actually converted and stored in the database as hundredths of a second.

In normal processing, the Workflow Engine completes the execution of a single activity before continuing to a subsequent activity. In some cases, an activity might take so long to process that background processing would be more appropriate.

You can define your Workflow Engine to defer activities with a cost higher than a designated threshold to a background process. The engine then continues processing the next pending eligible activity that may occur in another parallel branch of the process.

The default threshold for the Workflow Engine is 50 hundredths of a second. Activities with a cost higher than this are deferred to background engines. A background engine can be customized to execute only certain types of activities. You can set the workflow engine threshold through SQL*Plus. See: Setting Up Background Engines, Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide, To Set Engine Thresholds, Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide, and Deferring Activities, Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide.

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