Page 289 -

10 The Resource Service 285
is a member of the specified distribution set; the task from which the work item
was created had a user-initiated offer interaction specified at design time or had an
empty or invalid resourcing specification, and an administrator has manually offered
the work item to the participant; or an administrator has manually reoffered the work
item to the participant, the work item having previously been offered to, allocated
to, or started by another participant.
As a work item on an offered queue may have been offered to a number of par-
ticipants, there is no implied obligation to accept the offer, rather it is understood
that the participant is one of a group, any one who may choose to perform the work
item.
A participant may take the following actions on a work item in an offered queue:
Accept Offer: By accepting an offer, a participant takes responsibility for the
execution of the work item. The work item is moved from the offered queue
and, if the start interaction is user-initiated, placed on the participant’s allocated
queue, or if the start interaction is system-initiated, the work item is immedi-
ately started and placed on the participant’s started queue. This action removes
the work item from the offered queues of all other participants who had been
previously offered the work item.
Accept & Start: This action works similarly to Accept Offer, except that if the
work item’s start interaction is user-initiated, the work item will instead be imme-
diately started and placed on the participant’s started queue. Effectively, this
concatenates two user actions into one, simply as a convenience for the user.
Chain: This action will chain all the eligible work items of the case of which
the work item is a member to this participant. Chaining means that, when a par-
ticipant chooses to enact it, each remaining work item for the case is routed to
the participant and immediately started, but only if the participant is a member
of the distribution set for the work item. Chaining is effectively a short-circuiting
of a resource specification for a task, where the participant chooses to auto-
matically and immediately allocate and start any work item offered to him/her
within the chosen case. Chaining of work items for a case continues until the
case completes, or the participant turns off chaining via the View Profile form. A
participant must have the “Chain Work Item Execution” user privilege to enable
chaining.

10.7.2 The Allocated Queue

The Allocated queue lists the work items that have been allocated to a participant.
Unlike an offer, a work item on an allocated queue means that it has been allocated
to that participant alone, and comes with the understanding that the participant will
at some time start the work item and perform its work. A work item may be allocated
to a participant via one of the five paths: the task from which the work item was cre-
ated had a system-initiated offer interaction, a system-initiated allocate interaction,