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Designing a Workflow |
  
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Designing a Workflow |
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You can think of a Workflow design as a blueprint. The Workflows you design will map the path for a specific Document Type according to the directions set forth.
It’s helpful to use a design document or planning document to help you map out Workflows beforehand. This will ultimately save time in planning the Document Types you’ll need to create and help eliminate redundancies in the design. There are various options available for designing Workflow, such as activities, events, templates, and conditions.
Basic steps for designing a Workflow:
You will first need to set an Initial Step, which will serve as a starting point for items in the Workflow. In order to do this, first of all you need to drag and drop a Step Activity into the design area and name the Step (i.e., InitialStep). Again, there can’t be spaces in the names for the Steps you create, so the name must omit the space or use an underscore between words. Once the Initial Step has been named, right-click on it and select "Set as Initial Step" from the menu.
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Along with the Initial Step, every Workflow must have a Completed Step to serve as the ending point for items within the Workflow. This is created in the same way as the Initial Step. Once a Step is created and named, right-click to select "Set as Completed Step" from the menu.
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The steps you choose to create between the Initial Step and Completed Step depend on the process for the Workflow. Each Step in the Workflow represents a step in the process, external actions or events cause an item to change step, or transition a document from one step to another. Each Step will contain different Events you can define for the process, which can be any of the mentioned below:
| • | Approve - This is an Approve activity, used to move the Workflow Item from one state of Workflow to other. |
| • | Reject - This is Reject activity, used to reject the Workflow Item and stop moving it to next state of the Workflow. |
| • | Custom Event - This allows to set the customized event. |
| • | CanAssociateInThisStep: If CanAssociateInThisStep Step Property is set to True then you will be able to associate the respective Workflow Item to a record in Host Application using Workflow Entry Viewer. |
There are items within each event that performs a specific action. Click here to know more about Steps and Activities.
Tip: |
When creating a Workflow from scratch, it’s usually easier to create all the Steps before defining all the actions. |
The InitialStepActivity, DataEntryStepActivity, and ReviewStepActivity are the three composite step activities provided for designing Workflow. These activities are a combination of various activities which provide other steps like Approve, Reject, and so on. Using these activities will save you the time and effort required.
Once the Workflow is designed, you can compile the Workflow to check whether it is correct or not. To compile a Workflow, click Compile Workflow on the toolbar. If the Workflow is not compiled successfully, then the following message will appear.
If the Workflow is compiled successfully, then the following message will appear.
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1. While starting PaperSave Settings, PaperSave detects whether a local copy of the Workflow design exists, and if it exists then it should prompt a message that a Workflow exists which may not have been saved last time. If you want to load the unsaved Workflow, click Yes, then the designed Workflow is loaded.
2. In case, the designed Workflow or modified Workflow template is not saved and you are trying to move to some other section of PaperSave, then you will be asked to save the current Workflow. To continue saving, click on Yes button and exit the window.
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