The Outbox is a standard feature on the Action List and is visible to the user in the UI by default. When the Outbox is turned on, users can access it from the Outbox hyperlink at the top of the Action List.
The Outbox is implemented by heavily leveraging existing Action List code. When an Action Item is deleted from the Action Item table as the result of a user action, the item is stored in the KEW_OUT_BOX_ITM_T table, using the org.kuali.rice.kew.actionitem.OutboxItemActionListExtension object. This object is an extension of the ActionItemActionListExtension. The separate object exists to provide a bean for OJB mapping.
The Workflow Preferences determine if the Outbox is visible and functioning for each user. The preference is called Use Outbox. In addition, you can configure the Outbox at the KEW level using the parameter tag:
<param name="actionlist.outbox">true</param>
When the Outbox is set to false, the preference for individual users to configure the Outbox is turned off. By default, the Outbox is set to true at the KEW level. You can turn the Outbox off (to hide it from users) by setting the property below to false:
<param name="actionlist.outbox.default.preference.on">false</param>
This provides backwards compatibility with applications that used earlier versions of KEW.
Notes on the Outbox:
Actions on saved documents are not displayed in the Outbox.
The Outbox responds to all saved Filters and Action List Preferences.
A unique instance of a document only exists in the Outbox. If a user has a document in the Outbox and that user takes action on the document, then the original instance of that document remains in the Outbox.