• Description and Purpose
• Example of Recent Items
• Usage
• Related Documentation

The Recent Items menu enables users to return to flows across work areas that have been recently accessed, usually within, but not limited to, a single session.

Recent Items does not track all flows. The flows that can and cannot be captured are limited both by their dependencies and whether or not the task flow appears in the main task area.

Flows that can be added to Recent Items are:

• Any object detail page including the object identifier that can be accessed using global or transactional search (for example, Purchase Order: 123456) 
• Any flow that can be accessed directly without relying on another flow for context:
• Overview pages
• Manage pages
• Search pages
• Create- and edit-type flows (except subprocesses)
• Setup pages
• Flows that can be bookmarked and added to Favorites

Flows that cannot be added to Recent Items are:

• Any flow that relies on another flow or action for context
• Drill-down subprocesses (for example, a subprocess transaction)
• Any partial-page transitions of a single flow (view activity)
• Individual search result sets
• Popups and dialog boxes
• Progressions through a master list in a master/detail layout (for example, expense report lines or invoice lines)
• Any intermediate steps of a flow (for example, a second step of a train)
• Any object that requires parent context (for example, expense report lines or invoice lines)
• Child objects of these types should be accessed through their parent (for example, a line item in an expense report)
• Any flow nested in a secondary tab set (for example, a dashboard, overview page)

Context is typically set at the beginning of a flow. For example, when a business object is added to Recent Items, it should include both the context of the activity (for example, create, view, edit), as well as the object identifier (for example, Customer ACME Corp., Employee John Smith).

State is something that changes during the course of the flow (for example, results in a search and traversing through master records in a master/detail layout). Recent Items is not intended to maintain the state of the flow. For example, the results of a particular search will not be part of Recent Items context. The native saved search capabilities are sufficient to support that requirement (see Search and Query Usage Guidelines for details). Instead, the Recent Item will only register the entry point of the search flow in this case.

• No-tab work area
  Launching a flow from Recent Items in a No-tab work area replaces the current local area flow with the flow selected in the Recent Items menu. If the flow being replaced is a transaction containing uncommitted data (for example, create or edit flow), a warning dialog box will alert the user to save changes before continuing (see Save Model guideline for more details).
  
  
• Dynamic Tab work areas
  Launching a flow from Recent Items in a Dynamic Tab work area can open a new tab or place an existing tab in focus. An item from Recent Items launches in a new tab if the flow and its context are not already running in the work area. For example, if the flow in Recent Items is Edit Employee: John Smith, and the current work area has an Edit Employee flow open for Kate Jackson, selecting Recent Items will open a new tab. If, however, the selected Recent Item was Edit Employee: Kate Jackson, because this flow is already running in the work area, the tab is simply brought into focus.
  
  
• Static Tab work areas
  Static Tab work areas are similar to No-tab work areas in that they always replace a flow in the work area. The difference is that Static Tab work areas have one main flow running in each of its static tabs. When a flow running in a static tab is added to Recent Items, both the flow and its associated static tab are captured. Therefore, selecting an item from Recent Items will replace the flow in the corresponding static tab.

The business flows or objects captured in Recent Items may belong to a different work area that navigates the user away from the current work area. The following outcomes describe how the navigation framework handles each type of navigation.

When navigating to a No-tab work area, the selected Recent Item is the flow loaded upon entry. When navigating to a Dynamic Tab work area, the Overview tab for that work area opens, followed by the selected Recent Item in a new tab (which is brought into focus). When navigating to a Static Tab work area, all static tabs are loaded upon entry, and the tab associated with the Recent Item selection comes into focus.

Navigating away from an incomplete task flow from a Recent Items selection should fire the same unsaved data warning and necessary validations as any other link or button on the page (see Save Model guidelines for details).