When to create activity rules in Pega PRPC BPM

​Activity rules provide you with one way to automate the processing of work using a procedural, program-like approach, without requiring Java skills or manually entering Java code. An activity is presented as a series of steps, with some of the same features as an object-oriented programming language—such as iterations or conditions.

While to some who have programming experience, activities appear to be a natural, general purpose and flexible way to create rules, activities can quickly become complex to analyze, debug and maintain.

Accordingly, use activities only when there are no other, more appropriate rule types. For example, instead of using a series of activity steps, use a Declare Expression rule to calculate declaratively, rather than procedurally.

Similarly, use a when rule, decision table, map value rule, decision tree rule, or parse rule whenever these rule types capture the business requirements well.

Even when you determine that an activity rule is appropriate, remember that Process Commander includes dozens of useful standard activities that apply to the @baseclass, Work-, Assign-, or History- classes. Don't create an activity in your application when you can call a standard activity to perform the needed processing.

When writing activities, keep the following best practices in mind:

• Keep activities short. Limit activities you create to fewer than 25 steps.
• Limit hand-coded Java. Avoid Java steps in activities when standard rule types, library functions, or activity methods are available. Reserve your valuable time and Java skills for implementing things that do not already exist.