Desktop Client: Using an Expression as a Count for a Batch is Evaluated for Each Transaction

This article generally applies to iGrafx Process and iGrafx Process for Six Sigma Client tools where simulation is possible. The setup, however, can be defined by iGrafx FlowCharter.

On the Inputs page of an activity, you may collect transactions using one of several methods; including the Batch type collection. One of the options for batch collection is by Count; specifying a certain count of transactions is collected together to form the batch. Modeling batch count using an expression will cause that expression to be evaluated for each transaction, not each batch.

This may cause you batch counts to be different than what you expected, because when the batch count becomes less than or equal to the number of transactions waiting, it batches and releases all transactions waiting.

For example, if you use a user-defined distribution function (created from the Model menu, by choosing Functions) to return certain non-continuous numbers randomly from the distribution, when the batch count becomes less than or equal to the number of transactions waiting, it batches and releases all transactions waiting. This would appear to be continuous behavior, even if you have set the function to be non-continuous.