Here’s a simple way to set a default outcome for an escalation so the workflow will take to your chosen activity when the escalation fires.  I’ve seen many approaches to accomplish this, but I think this one is the easiest.

Let’s say you have a client event (this technique can work with a server or IPC event with some adjustment) where the user has two choices:  Approve or Reject.  If the user takes no action after a certain amount of time, you want to automatically take the reject choice. 

Steps:

·         Open the K2 Object Browser and go to the “Process/Activity” tab

·         Expand Data Fields | Activities | then expand the activity that contains your client event

·         Right click and edit the “Outcome” field

·         In the Initial Value field, put the outcome you want to use when the activity expires (“Reject” in this example)

·         Set the activity escalation for the appropriate time, then on the “Action Template” screen, choose “Expire Activity”

That’s it.  When the activity expires, it will take the outcome specified in the initial value.  Using this technique, you could also take a path that is not one of the choices given to the user.  For example, you could set the initial value of the outcome to “Expire” and then set up a line rule that will branch to activities you want to perform when the user took no action.