Workflow : Remove a user from group of next activity

Question

We have 2 groups 1) Group A [For editing content] {A1,A2,A3,X...} 2) Group B [For Approving content]{B1,B2,B3,X...}

If a User X is part of both groups A and B and edits some content, we don't want the approval activity to be assigned to user X, but it should be assigned to rest of the users of group B instead of entire group.

We are using Core services to finish the activity.

Code as below:

            LinkToTrusteeData nextAssignee = new LinkToTrusteeData();
            nextAssignee.IdRef = nextActivityAssigneeId;
            nextAssignee.Title = nextActivityAssigneeTitle;

            ActivityFinishData finish = new ActivityFinishData();
            var readoptions = new ReadOptions();
            finish.Message = finishActivityMessage;
            finish.NextAssignee = nextAssignee;

            _client.FinishActivity(currentActivityId, finish, readoptions);

Is there a way we can assign the next activity to list of users rather than assigning to a predefined group?

Tridion version : 2011 SP1, C# Core services.

Regards, Tarun Panwar

Answer 1

For this requirement, the typical approach I see is to validate on Activity Start that the user is not the same as the previous user, and throw an exception if that's the case. You can (must?) use the Event System for this validation, and if you throw the exception on the Initialized phase then the activity will not start and the user in question will see the text of your exception.

UPDATE

Here's how it would work:

1. On Activity Start, check if this is the "Approval" activity. If not, exit and do nothing.
2. If it is the "Approval" activity, find who was the user who created/edited the content, and check if it matches the current user. If not, exit and do nothing.
3. If the users match, throw an exception with text like "Content editors cannot approve their own content changes". The activity is not started and remains assigned to the group until someone else starts it.