Documents Admin - Workflows

In order you will first have to navigate to Administration > Documents Admin > Workflows.

Once you are in here all of the existing workflow templates will be displayed. To create a new template simply click the blue plus symbol in the top right of the screen. After clicking this you will be displayed with a new text box that looks like this:



In the first instance you will need to choose what Organisation Unit this will be connected to. You can do this by clicking on the underlined words in the top left (in this case support). Once you do this it will bring up a window listing all of the organisation Units that this can be created, you can either search for the one that you are looking for select it manually from the dropdowns. After this you will need to pick a title. This is what will be displayed when searching for the workflow template. After doing this you can enter the purpose of the new workflow, this is not mandatory, but it will help distinguish it from others with similar names.
Once all necessary fields have been completed click the Create button in bottom right to create the workflow. After doing this you will see the new workflow that should look something like this:



The owner and the Author will be set to you by default but can be changed depending on permission.
Adding Stages
Now that the Workflow is create it will display a back template. To add a new stage onto the template simply click the add page button and a drop down will appear asking what stage type you would like to add, “Approval Stage or “Task Stage”.



The Task Stage is a task that you will assign to someone to complete in the document, for example, Spell Check.
The Approval Stage is to assign approvers to make are that the task has been completed correctly.
 
 
 
When you select either one of these it will then display 3 text boxes, “Title”, Acceptable Response Time” and “Guidance”. Started off with the task first is recommended as you can then add approvers for the task after.



The Title is what this stage in the workflow will be called. Acceptable Response Time is a number is days that the task has to be completed, if it goes past this time it will be shown as overdue. Guidance is section where you can add any additional information that will help. This is not mandatory, but it can be helpful. Once you have entered the relevant information click the add task stage button and this should now be showing in the workflow like this:


 
The next theing you will need to do is to add a task for the stage that was created. You can do this by clicking on the add task button. After you have done this Coruson will Display another 3 text boxes “Owner”, “Acceptable Response Time” and “Instruction”. 



Owner will allow you to assign an owner to the task. This means that once a document is created using this workflow template this task will always be assigned to the person marked as owner. Acceptable Response Time is the same as when you add a stage, but this time limit is only for this specific task and not the full stage. Instructions will let you explain in what needs to be done in this specific task. When you have entered all of the information needed click the add button and this will add the task onto the stage.


It is important to not that you can have more that one task on each stage.
Once you have created that task you can and as many more as you want.
Creating an Approval stage is very similar to creating a task stage. Click the add task button then in the dropdown click Approval Stage. Once again, the same 3 text boxes appear and once again you will need to add a Title, Acceptable Response Time and Guidance (if needed). Once you have added this information click the add approval stage button and you will see a new stage in your workflow. It should now look something like this (depending on how many stages you have added)



Now that you have more that one stage there is a new feature that you will be able to Utilise if need. It is called dependency’s.
Between the two stages there is a grey arrow pointing down that looks like this:



The best way to explain a dependency it to say that Stage A must be completed before work can begin on Stage B. Click the grey arrow between the two stages and the icon will turn blue, this means that it is active. Click this arrow again to remove the dependency.



You cannot disable the dependency between the last stage and the Distribution stage.
In the top right of each stage there is a box with three horizontal lines. This can be used to move each stages order in the workflow by dragging and dropping. This is the only part of the stage that will let you drag and drop if you try in on any other part it will not work.
 
Once you have added all of your stages, you can start completing the Distribution list. This is where you can assign Copyholders. A copy holder is someone how is given permission to have a copy of the document. You can add these typing the name of the persion that you want to add into the search bar and clicking the blue plus button in the copyholders section of the distribution stage.



After doing this the persons name will display in the bottom of the list.


 
When all of the stages have been completed and all of the copyholder have been assigned you can now activate the workflow. To do this you have to scroll back up to the top of the page and click the drop down button on the top right.



This will display 2 options, Activate and Advanced. Advanced will allow you to change the organisational Unit that the workflow Is linked to. Activate will make to workflow active.
Once the workflow is made active all of the ability to edit the will be removed. If you have noticed something that need to be changed you can Revise the Workflow. To revise the workflow, you click the same icon on the top right and select Revise. This will allow you to make the naseberry changes. If you ever need to look back on previous versions of the workflow you can navigate to the history section next to details.


 
 
This will give you a list of all the revisions you have made. Clicking on each one will display that version.


 
If for any reason you would like to use the workflow you created as a template for another you can select ‘Create New Workflow Based On’ in the same drop-down as revise is in



Here it will ask you for a new Title and the purpose of the new workflow. After filling these out just click create. This is an easier way to create a new workflow without starting from scratch again. All sections of the new workflow that you have created based on the existing one can be changed.