Candidate User / Groups vs Potential User/Groups constructs? - User Task Assignment

What is the use case for User Tasks Candidate User and Groups vs Potential User and Groups?

https://docs.camunda.org/manual/7.4/reference/bpmn20/tasks/user-task/#user-assignment

The docs do not indicate the use case when you use Potential user/Group constructs versus the Candidate User and Groups.

Thanks

Hi Stephen,

The below link
https://docs.camunda.org/manual/7.4/reference/bpmn20/tasks/user-task/#assignment-using-bpmn-resource-assignments states that

ā€œBPMN defines some native assignment concepts which can be used in camunda. As a more powerful alternative, Camunda also defines a set of custom extension elementsā€

Potential User and Groups is the native assignment concepts
Candidate User and Groups is the custom extension elements

From below links
https://docs.camunda.org/manual/7.4/reference/bpmn20/tasks/user-task/#candidate-users
https://docs.camunda.org/manual/7.4/reference/bpmn20/tasks/user-task/#candidate-groups

You can see that there is no difference between them in term of functionality (custom extension is used for simplicity & is more readable)

Candidate Users
ā€œThis is exactly the same as using a potentialOwner construct as defined above. Note that it is not required to use the user(kermit) declaration as is the case with the potential owner construct, since this attribute can only be used for usersā€

Candidate Groups
ā€œThis is exactly the same as using a potentialOwner construct as defined above. Note that it is not required to use the group(management) declaration as is the case with the potential owner construct, since this attribute can only be used for groupsā€

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@hassang, Thanks!! I feel like i read/skimmed that page ā€˜50 timesā€™ and i missed that :neutral_face:ā€¦
I am increasingly getting the impression that there are super valuable tidbits of information that we innately expect to be ā€œheadingsā€ in the docs rather than tucked into a sentence or paragraph. I notice a lot of people always asking questions to fairly basic items that are either not explicitly documented (they are documented, just not in the obvious place and often need a pointer link), they are tucked into a sentence when a heading would be FAQ would be super valuable, or examples are missing for very common scenarios under headings or explanations in the way people tend to think about things (at least at first without diving deeply into the specific terminology of camunda).

Going to do some PRs to update some of the docs with some of the common scenarios, questions, and clarity/explanation headings/text. Example a Difference between Candidate Users, potentialOwner, etc heading with text explaining the difference would be helpful especially when ā€œscanningā€ the docs (which is most common compared to reading the docs in detail).

That would be great :slight_smile:

:slight_smile: also want to be clear :slight_smile: : I am not saying the Docs are bad. They are quite detailed! (shown by the amount of answers to peoples questions that just point to a specific doc and quote some text). There is just some common searched headings and ā€œfaqā€ style questions seem like they are difficult to find and would likely benefit from more prominent placement on the page.

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Hi, how can I restrict Task assignation by group membership at BPMN level ?

2 Likes

Just to highlight the difference, with the support for BPMNā€™s native ā€œhumanPerformerā€ , only ONE user id can be specified as an assignee.
But using the Camunda extension ā€œpotentialOwnerā€ (candidate user), we have flexibility to define multiple users and groups as well as assignee(s). Like user(kermit) and group(management).

Not sure if in BPMN native element we can add group or not.

@StephenOTT @hassang