Creating Workflows

Creating a Workflow

A best practice recommendation is to first plan out the design of your workflow on paper before you create it in Workflow Designer. Draw a diagram of your workflow on paper to help you identify all the tasks involved with a process, reduce oversights in your electronic version, and facilitate a thoughtful, well-designed workflow process.

To create a workflow

1. Navigate to the Administration portlet (see Navigating to the Setup).

2. From the Setup portlet, choose Administration > Workflow Designer.

3. Click New.

   The Create Workflow dialog box displays.

   
   
   

4. Enter a Workflow Name.

   Workflow Designer validates the name and displays a check mark by the field to indicate successful validation.

   
   
   

5. You can either create a new master process for the workflow, or specify an existing process as the master process:

   • To create a new process, click Create a New Process, then enter a process name.

   • To specify an existing process, click Use Existing Process, then select a process.

   If you create a workflow with an existing process, after you edit and save the process in the new workflow, Civic Platform updates the process in the other workflows associated with it.

6. Click Submit.

7. Design the workflow process as described in Designing the Workflow Process.

8. Click Save when your workflow design is complete.

   If you have not yet finished designing the workflow, click Save Draft before exiting Workflow Designer.

Designing the Workflow Process

Before you start designing a workflow process, it is best practice to understand all of the tasks you plan to include, what status a task must reach before its subsequent task can start, and how tasks relate to each other.

Workflow Designer does not allow you to save partially completed workflows, so make sure a workflow can meet all the following criteria before saving it:

• The workflow must have start nodes and end nodes.

• All of the nodes must connect with a flow widget.

• All of the connections (flows) must have a status.

Troubleshooting Tip: A flow widget must start from a start, fork, join or a task widget, and it must end at a fork, join, task or an end widget. If a flow widget starts from a task widget, you must assign one or more task statuses to the flow widget. This way, the workflow process knows what status(es) a task must reach before its subsequent task(s) can start.

To design the workflow process

1. Complete steps 1-6 of the preceding topic, Creating a Workflow.

2. From the Widgets panel, drag and drop a Start node and an End node onto your blank workspace. Simply click the node (Start, for example) then drag and drop it onto the workspace, leaving space between the nodes so you can enter details later, as show below. For descriptions of the widgets, see The Widgets Panel.

   
   
   

3. From the Widgets panel, drag the workflow tasks onto the workspace.

   
   
   

4. To specify the task names, double-click the default task name (Task1, for example) and enter a name for your task.

   
   
   

5. To connect two tasks, add a flow widget (Straight, Horizontal, or Vertical) as follows:

   1. From the Widgets panel, click the appropriate flow widget.

   2. Go to the workspace.

   3. Hover the mouse over the center of a task.

   4. Wait for the mouse cursor to change from an arrow to a hand:

      
      
      

   5. Drag the cursor to the next task and then release the mouse button.

      
      
      

6. To connect one task to two or more parallel tasks:

   1. From the Widgets panel, drag a Fork widget between the task and the parallel tasks.

   2. From the Widgets panel, drag a Straight widget to connect the task to the fork node.

   3. From the Widgets panel, drag a Vertical widget to connect the fork node to each parallel task.

      
      
      

7. To connect two or more parallel tasks to one task:

   1. From the Widgets panel, drag a Join widget between the parallel tasks and the individual task.

   2. From the Widgets panel, drag a Vertical widget to connect the parallel tasks to the join.

   3. From the Widgets panel, drag a Straight widget to connect the join node to the next task.

      
      
      

8. After you connect all of the workflow tasks to each other, connect the last workflow task to the end node with the Straight flow widget.

   
   
   

9. To create a workflow status that keeps the workflow on the same task:

   1. From the Widgets panel, select Vertical.

   2. Hover your mouse over the task; start and end the connection on the same task.

      
      
      

10. To create a workflow status that loops back to a previous task:

    1. From the Widgets panel, select Vertical.

    2. Hover your mouse over the task.

    3. Drag the connection back to a previous task.

       
       
       

11. To add a task status:

    1. From the workspace panel, select a task connection.

    2. From the Flow Properties panel, click Manage Status.

    3. Click New.

    4. Enter the name of the status.

    5. Click Submit.

       
       
       

12. To define the status settings:

    1. Select a task connection.

    2. From the Flow Properties panel, click Manage Status.

    3. From the Status Setting panel, define the appropriate settings.

       
       
       

13. To set the Workflow Properties for a workflow task:

    1. From the workspace panel, select a task.

    2. From the Task Properties panel, set the properties for the task.

       
       
       

14. Click Save when your workflow design is complete.

Editing a Workflow

Regardless of where you created a workflow, whether in the Classic Workflow tool or Workflow Designer, you can edit it in Workflow Designer.

To edit a workflow

1. Navigate to the Administration portlet (see Navigating to the Setup).

2. From the Setup portlet, choose Administration > Workflow Designer.

3. Click Open.

   Workflow Designer displays the Open Workflow dialog with all the existing workflows in the General tab and all the draft workflows in the Draft tab. The existing workflows contain all the workflows configured in either Workflow Designer or the Classic Workflow tool.

   
   
   

4. Locate the workflow. In the General tab or the Draft tab, you can filter the workflows that display by:

   • Entering text in the Find by field. You can then press Enter or click the Filter button to display only the workflows whose names start with the text.

   • Clicking the page selection buttons to switch between pages.

5. Select the workflow.

6. Click Open.

   Workflow Designer displays the message “Opening workflow, please wait...”

   Troubleshooting Tip: If the selected workflow fails to load in Workflow Designer it might be a partially completed workflow created with the Classic Workflow tool. If this is the case you must return to the Classic Workflow tool, open the workflow there, and finish configuring the workflow before you can open it in Workflow Designer.

7. Edit the workflow tasks as appropriate to your business objectives.

8. Save the workflow.

Cloning a Workflow

You can clone a workflow that is currently open in the workspace.

To clone a workflow

1. Navigate to the Administration portlet (see Navigating to the Setup).

2. From the Setup portlet, choose Administration > Workflow Designer.

3. Open a workflow.

4. Click Clone.

   The Work Designer displays the Clone Workflow dialog.

   
   
   

5. Enter the new workflow name.

   A warning sign displays if the new name is in use by an existing workflow or if the new name contains forbidden characters. You must change the name to dismiss the warning.

6. (Optional) Enter the new process name. If you do not enter a new process name, the cloned workflow inherits the process of the workflow you are cloning.

   Workflow Designer opens the newly-cloned workflow process. The old workflow process automatically exits in its last-saved state.

7. Modify the workflow according to the objectives you want to achieve.

8. Click Save.

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   Note: If you clone a workflow without saving it first, the newly-cloned workflow contains the changes since the last save, while the old workflow loses the changes.

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The Workflow Designer Menu

Table 1 describes the buttons in the Workflow Designer menu.

The Widgets Panel

Table 2 describes the set of widgets in the Workflow Designer menu that appears in the widgets panel. Each widget displays with a graphical icon that helps you identify it.

In the widgets panel, the straight, horizontal, and vertical widgets are flow widgets, and the start, task, fork, join and end widgets are node widgets.

Workflow Properties

The property sheet resides on the right panel of Workflow Designer, and shows the properties related with the current workflow. If a widget in the workspace has focus, the property settings of the widget, if any, also display in the property sheet.

• A workflow’s properties always display regardless of whether a widget in the workspace has focus. For a description of workflow properties, see Table 3.

• Task properties display when a task widget in the workspace has focus. For a description of task properties see Table 4.

• Flow properties display when a flow widget (straight, horizontal, or vertical) that starts from a task widget has focus. For a description of flow properties, see Table 5.

  Table 3. Workflow Properties

  Property	Description
  Workflow Name	This read-only field displays the name of the current workflow.
  Master Process Name	This read-only field displays the name of the master process for the current workflow.
  In-process Task Activation	Select whether to allow users to activate or deactivate tasks in the workflow process for a record.
  Module	Select the module that you want to assign the workflow to.
  Status	Select the status of the workflow. If you choose disabled you cannot associate the workflow with record types.

  Table 4. Task Properties

  Property	Description
  Task Name	Enter the name of the task as you want it to display to users.
  Initial Status	Select the task status you want to display when the task first becomes active. When you first configure a workflow task, the drop-down list is empty. After you adds a flow widget that suspends the task, the drop-down list displays the task statuses configured for the flow widget. Here is an example of a flow widget that suspends a task:
  Department	Use the Department drop-down list to select the department that is responsible for the task.
  Staff	Use the Staff button to select a staff member that belongs to the selected department and is responsible for the task.
  Task Specific Info Group	Select the specific task information group you want to associate with the current task in the workflow process. You set up these groups in the Classic Workflow tool.
  Duration (Days)	Enter the number of days required to complete this task after it is active.
  Estimated Hours	Enter the number of estimated hours required to complete this task.
  Hours Spent Required	Choose Yes if you want to require that anyone who works on the task records the number of hours spent. If you do not want to require the hours spent, choose No.
  Workflow Calendar	Use the drop-down list to assign a workflow calendar to the task.
  Citizen Access Displayable	If you want Citizen Access to display the task, select Yes; otherwise, select No.
  Skip Tasks	If you click the field entry area, a “Skip Other Tasks” window pops up. You can select the tasks that users can skip when they complete the current task. Note: You cannot configure a task as the skipped task in multiple tasks. If you configure Task A as the skipped task in task B, and then you open the “Skip Other Tasks” window for task C, the “Skip Other Tasks” window does not list task A as an option.
  Proximity Alert	If you click the field entry area, a “Proximity Alerts” window pops up. You can select the GIS proximity alerts to apply during the execution of the task.
  Sub Process	Select an existing sub process that you want to add to the current task. You can also click the icon next to the field to create a new sub process in the current task.
  Sub Process Completion Required	If you want the sub process in the current task to complete before moving to the next task, select Yes; otherwise, select No.

  Table 5. Flow Properties

  Property	Description
  Task Status	This field displays the status that a task must reach before the activation of its next task. If there are multiple statuses, a task only need to reach one of the statuses before the activation of its next task.
  Application Status	Enter a status in this field. If the task that the flow widget starts from reaches the Task Status, the Application Status you enter in this field displays as the Application Status.
  Parent Status	This field works with the flow widget that starts from a sub process task. Enter a status in this field. If the sub process task reaches the Task Status, the parent task that contain the sub process changes to the status in this field.
  Time Tracker Clock Action	Select the time tracker clock action that triggers when the task reaches the selected status. The time tracker clock controls how the Time Tracker records In Possession time for workflow tasks and for applications.
  Citizen Access Displayable	If you want Citizen Access to display the task, select Yes; otherwise, select No.
  Email Settings	This field displays the number of notifications to send when the task reaches the selected status. “0-notification” means there is no notification, “1-notification” means Civic Platform sends one notification, and so forth. If you click the field entry area, an “Email Settings” window pops up. You can create, edit or remove the notifications.