Case Management
What the exam tests
Case Management questions test whether you can model a business transaction as a case lifecycle: case type → stages → processes → steps. You must distinguish design-time structure from run-time status and choose the right routing, service level, and child-case pattern.
Core rules
- A case type defines one business transaction and its data, life cycle, and UI.
- Stages are the major phases; they run in order and may include alternate stages for exceptions.
- Processes group related work inside a stage; a process can be optional or auto-started.
- Steps are assignments (human work), automations (data transforms, decisions), or case-creation steps.
- Run-time status values are New, Open, Pending, Resolved, and Closed; Pending needs a work status such as Pending-Approval.
- Routing sends an assignment to a worklist, work queue, or skill-based queue; SLAs define goal, deadline, and late behavior; case locking prevents concurrent edits.
Worked example
A purchase request has stages Intake, Review, Fulfill, Resolve. Intake routes to the requester's worklist. Review routes to the Approver work queue and carries a two-day SLA; Fulfill creates a child case for procurement; Resolve sends a notification. The reasoning: routing belongs on the assignment step, not the stage, and a child case isolates procurement work with its own lifecycle.
Traps
Using process and stage interchangeably; naming a stage after a status; placing an SLA at case-type level when only one stage needs it; forgetting alternate stages for rejection; ignoring locking in high-volume queues.