Workflow Management - Getting started

1What a workflow does #

A workflow makes a document - a purchase order, a quotation, a payment, any voucher type - pass through approval steps before it counts. Each step names who must answer and how many of them; the document moves on when a step is satisfied, and goes back, or stops, when it is refused. Everything the route decides is written into the document's history, with who did it, when and why.

The chain is always the same:

Two things are worth knowing from the start. First, a workflow is read each time the engine decides, so a change to a route reaches documents already waiting in it. Second, the people on a step are fixed for a document when it is submitted - changing a step's people later changes only new documents; a document already waiting keeps the people it was given.

2Where to find help #

Help comes in three shapes, and they use the same words.

• On every screen: the Help panel on the right. It explains what the screen is for, how to work in it step by step, every field, the keys, and what to do when something does not work. Workflow Set-up's step window has a Help strip of its own on its right edge, covering each section of the step field by field.
• The manual: at the foot of this page - Workflow Set-up, Workflow Steps, Workflow Manager, Voucher Manager and the Approvals Inbox, screen by screen, in the words their Help panels use.
• Search help in the header searches every screen's help at once; tick This screen only to stay on the screen you are on. Ask beside it answers a question in your own words from the same help.

3Where things are - the Workflow Management menu #

Outside the group:

4The Workflow Dashboard - where things stand #

Workflow Management > Workflow Dashboard (under *Start here*) shows the module at a glance: the work-flow steps and the approvals waiting for your decision; the documents on their way through the steps; what was sent back, completed or is late.

• Every tile has a button that opens the page or report behind the figure, and every list has one at its head - the dashboard is where you start, the page is where you act.
• A figure that wants attention reads red; one that is as it should be reads green; a plain figure is just a fact.
• The figures are for the report option you signed in with (All, Branch or Group), shown at the top as *For*, up to today.
• *Waiting for me* is always your own. The document counts are those you raised or have a step on; everyone's if you hold User Can Run Workflow Manager.
• Cancelled entries are never counted.
• The page is read when it opens and on Refresh (F3); it does not refresh by itself. Nothing is changed there.
• The right. The dashboard has a user preference of its own: *User Can View Workflow Dashboard* in User Manager > Preferences. It starts unticked for everyone; an administrator ticks it for whoever should see it. Administrators always hold it.

5First-day setup (administrator) #

Do these once per company, in this order. Step 1 is for whoever looks after the database; the rest are done in the application.

1. Check the licence: the company needs Workflow Management and the ERP edition. Then tick the Workflow Management rows in the menu for the people who set up and watch workflows.
2. Give the rights (User Permissions): Work Flow - Settings Master (Find / Create / Alter / Delete) to whoever writes routes; Work Flow Steps to whoever keeps the step names; User Can Run WorkflowManager, User can cancel Workflow Steps and User can cancel Workflow Assignments (Preferences) to whoever watches and steers; Submit Workflow on each voucher type (Vouchers tab) to the people who raise its documents. Administrators hold the preferences without a tick.
3. Make the user groups your approvers belong to (Admin > User Group). A step can name users, groups, or both; a group is worked out when the workflow is saved.
4. Make the statuses the route will set - Under Review, Approved, Rejected, Altered - in Settings > Status Label (the Status Master), if they are not there already.
5. For e-mail: a mail account with Create DB profile ticked (Settings > Email Account) and templates in Settings > Email Templates. A step's own template list only offers templates whose module type is Workflow Notification; a notification rule's list offers every template.
6. In Workflow Steps, add the step names and write their work instructions. In Workflow Set-up, build the route (see below), save it, and try it.
7. In Voucher Manager, open the voucher type, switch on Enable Work-Flow ?, save, then in View mode press Work-Flow Settings > Add Work-Flow, pick the workflow and the Applicable Branches (empty = every branch), and Save (F5).
8. Raise one real document of that type, submit it, and follow it in the Workflow Manager before telling everybody.

6Keys that work on the workflow screens #

In the step window, Tab and Shift+Tab move between fields; in a list, type to search and press Enter to pick. While a window opened from the step window is on top - a notification rule, Pick a field, + Create new step - its own F5 and Esc apply to it.

The approval keys are on the Approvals Inbox: Enter or O opens the document, I the step instructions, D the step documents, W the route and history, P the document's properties, F2 refreshes, and F5 is OK in the decision window.

7Workflow Steps - the step names #

A step name is one master shared by every workflow. Rename it and it changes everywhere it is used - the panel at the foot of the screen lists where that is. Workflow Set-up only picks from this list (it can add a name in passing with + Create new step, but this is where a step is filled in).

1. Add (F3). Give it a Name that says the job - "PO Review", "Store Verification" - not its place in a route. Names are unique and up to 100 characters; the description takes up to 2048.
2. Write the Work Instructions: what the approver is checking and what should make them refuse. Attach Document Link puts a link to a file in Document Management into the text.
3. Save (F5). Then, on the Documents tab (or F11), attach files to the step itself - a checklist, a specimen, a procedure. The file stays in Document Management; the step holds a link, so one file can serve several steps.
4. For a branching route only: switch on Has parent(s) and name the steps that come before this one. In the workflow, give this step the criterion Start when all parent step was completed.

Rules the screen enforces

• A step cannot be its own parent, and the parents may not lead back to it - a loop would leave both steps waiting for each other, so it is refused.
• A step name that workflows use, or that another step names as a parent, cannot be deleted - mark it Inactive instead. It then stays readable and pickable on the workflows that already name it, but is not offered for new ones.
• Deleting a step name removes its document links; the files themselves are untouched.
• Attaching documents needs the Document Management module, and the step must be saved first (a new step has no number yet).

8Workflow Set-up - writing a route #

A workflow written here is dormant until a voucher type points at it. One voucher type can carry several workflows; which one a document enters is decided by each workflow's activation condition and the branches it is attached for.

1. Add (F3) and give it a Name that says what it approves ("Purchase orders over 1 lakh"). Version is your own note for the revision; nothing reads it. Description says why the route exists.
2. Leave the Activation condition empty while you find your feet - every document of the voucher type then enters the route - and narrow it later.
3. Under Document creation options, set On document creation status and On document creation posting status. Unposted keeps the document out of the books until the route says otherwise - the usual choice for anything needing approval. Switch on Submit automatically ? if saving the document should also submit it; off, the raiser presses Submit when ready.
4. Press Add step. Name it, give it Execution order 1, and set Starting criteria to Start immediately on work flow submit - the first step must, or nothing would ever begin. Name the Responsible users and / or Responsible user groups. Choose the Completion policy and Rejection policy, the statuses each sets, and Where a rejection sends the document. OK (F5).
5. Add the later steps with order 2, 3 ... and Start when previous step was completed. Gaps are allowed - 10, 20, 30 leaves room to insert a step later.
6. Save (F5) the workflow and confirm. Nothing - not a step, not a person, not a notification rule - reaches the database before this.
7. Attach it to a voucher type in Voucher Manager, and try it on a real document.

The rest of the workflow form

Keeping workflows

• Duplicate makes a copy to change - the safe way to make a materially different route while the old one keeps running.
• A step that documents have been through is kept even if you take it off the list, because their history points at it; the save says so.
• A workflow that documents have used cannot be deleted - mark it Inactive. A workflow a voucher type still points at cannot be deleted either - clear it in Voucher Manager first.
• Changing a step while documents wait on it changes it for them too, since the engine reads the step each time it decides. The people already asked on those documents are not changed.

9The step window - every part of a step #

A step is one stop on the route. Open it with Add step, or pick a step and press Edit step (or double-click it). The workflow has to be in Add (F3) or Modify (F4); in View mode, Step details reads a step without changing it.

The step

• Step name (required) - picked from Workflow Steps. It is what approvers see in their queue and on the voucher.
• Execution order (required, 1 or more, unique in the workflow) - decides the order steps are created and which step is "the previous one".
• Description - copied onto each document's copy of the step when it is submitted, with every {Section.Field} replaced by that document's value, so it can read "Review of PO 42 for ABC Traders". Pick a field inserts a field in braces.

When it starts

• Starting type is Automatic - the only type the engine implements.
• On start document status - the status the document takes while this step waits, such as Under Review. (Not Applicable) leaves it as it is.
• Step creation condition - empty, the step is created for every document; filled, only for documents it is true of, tested once at submission. This is how one route asks a second approver only of the larger orders: a CFO step with {MasterSection.VchAmount} > 500000.

Who is responsible

• Responsible users and Responsible user groups - at least one of the two is required; a step with nobody on it would wait for ever. A disabled user is listed and marked: they cannot sign in to answer, so a step relying on them waits.
• The database works out each group's members when the workflow is saved, and again on every later save, so somebody who joins a group is asked on the next document.
• Who that comes out as lists everybody the step will ask - the users first, then each group's members, nobody twice.

Completion and rejection

• Completion and rejection are judged separately. The usual setting is complete on All, reject on Any - one refusal stops the step while every approval is needed to pass it.
• When everybody has answered and neither policy is met - three people, All to complete and All to reject, two for and one against - the step closes anyway rather than wait for ever, and the Workflow Manager marks it a tie.
• On completion document status and Posting status on completion: Under Review mid-route, Approved and Posted on the last step. Posted puts the document into the books as the step passes.
• On rejection document status (normally Rejected, or Altered when the raiser should correct it) and Posting status on rejection (Unposted takes a document that had reached the books back out).

Editable after rejection ? - on, the raiser may change the document before submitting it again; off, they may only re-submit it as it is. The lock returns as soon as a step opens again.

What the approver is told

• User instructions - shown to the approvers with the step, with every {Section.Field} filled in for the document.
• Expiry in days - how long the step may wait before it counts as overdue (used for escalation only when Escalate after is empty; also what turns a row orange in the Workflow Manager).
• Message template, Subject, Message - kept with the step as the desktop keeps them. Nothing sends mail from them today: a step's e-mails come from its notification rules.

If nobody answers

• Escalate to - empty, an overdue step keeps waiting and shows orange. Named, the overdue step goes to these people.
• Escalate after and Counted in (Days or Hours) - the wait before the step counts as overdue, from the moment it opened. Empty uses Expiry in days; both empty, the step is never overdue.

What OK checks

OK refuses the step, naming everything missing in one sentence: a step name, an execution order of 1 or more, when it starts, a completion policy, a rejection policy, where a rejection sends the document, a value above zero for an Atleast or Percentage policy, or somebody responsible. Saving the workflow checks the whole route again: execution orders unique, percentages no higher than 100, expiry not negative, every condition readable, every notification rule complete, and the first step starting on submit.

10Conditions - activation, creation and auto completion #

A condition is one true-or-false test, read against the saved document. It is used three ways: the workflow's Activation condition (does the document enter this route?), a step's Step creation condition (is this step created for it?), and the Auto completion condition (does it finish at once?).

Three sections of the document can be tested: the document itself (MasterSection), its item lines (LineItemSection) and its ledger lines (LineAccSection). A line-level test is true if any line matches.

Building one

1. In Builder, pick a field, an operator that fits what the field holds, and the value. Rule adds another line; Group adds a bracket, which may be ALL (AND) or ANY (OR), and may be turned round with NOT.
2. Or switch to Expression - the same condition as text, with the field and operator pickers beside it. Anything the builder cannot draw - a function such as DATEDIFF, arithmetic, a sub-query - is written here and kept as text; the builder says so instead of losing it.
3. Press Check: SQL Server reads the test without running it on anything, and names an unknown column.
4. Press Test it on a document and give a Voucher #ID - the internal number the Workflow Manager lists, not the printed number. It says whether the condition holds for that document and lists what the document has in every field the condition names.

• There are no totals of the lines. The document row does not carry them, so "the whole quantity of the order" cannot be tested - test the document's own amount, or a line.
• The field list is generated from the views the engine really reads, so every name offered resolves. The desktop offered a longer list (TotalLineItemQty and the like); those names fail when the engine reads them, and a workflow with one in its condition simply never starts.
• A condition may not contain a semicolon, a comment marker or a statement word such as delete - it is a test, not a command, and the screen refuses those.
• A condition that looks right but never fires: test it on the document that should have entered. The condition is read against what was saved.

11The route diagram #

The same drawing appears in three places: Workflow Set-up (Step details, where it is also the designer), the Workflow Manager (the selected document's route) and the voucher's Workflow window (also opened with W from the Approvals Inbox). Start is at the top, one box per step, End at the foot.

Reading it

• An arrow is a step's starting rule. From Start: the step opens on submit. From the step just before it: it waits for that step. From any other step: it waits for all its parents. A dashed arrow from Start means the step is started by hand (No Criteria).
• In the Manager and on the voucher, a box's edge shows the step's state: green completed or approved, blue started (open and waiting), grey pending (not opened yet), red rejected, amber cancelled or stopped by somebody. Late - an open step past its due date - glows amber.
• Click a box to pick the step: its card, with its people and its policy, shows under the drawing. Steps shows every card as a list instead; the screen remembers which you chose.
• Drag the canvas to move around; zoom with the buttons, or Fit to see it whole.
• A document rejected and sent round again has one pass per round: the diagram draws the latest, and a Round list draws an earlier one.

Designing a route by drawing (Workflow Set-up, in Add or Modify)

1. Drag from the blue dot under a step - or under Start - onto the step that should wait. Or click the step (or Start), press Connect, then click the step that should wait; press Connect again to stop.
2. Drawing a second arrow into a step adds a parent - a step that waited for the one before it keeps waiting for it too.
3. To remove an arrow, click it and press Delete, or Remove. A step left with no arrow in becomes started by hand, and the message says so - draw a new arrow into it.
4. Add step opens the step window; double-click a step to edit it; select a step and press Delete to take it off the route.
5. Save the workflow. The number in each box is the execution order - set in the step window; the drawing places a step below everything it waits for.

12Who is e-mailed, and when - notification rules #

A notification rule says: on this event, send this template to these people. The rules live in the same tables the desktop uses.

1. Press Add rule. Choose When it is sent and the Message template - both required; the mail is built from the template with the document's values filled in.
2. Choose Who from the route: nobody, everybody on the route, or - on a step - the step's own people, or the people it was escalated to. These are worked out on each document.
3. Add people or user groups by name, and switch on The person who created the document if the raiser should hear. A rule has to reach somebody.
4. Save (F5) the workflow; the rules are written with it.

• Nothing is sent unless Enable notification ? and E-mail ? are on and an E-mail account is chosen in Notification options. The rules say so above themselves when one of these is missing.
• Only a person whose user account has an e-mail address receives anything; the rest are skipped silently.
• Two rules on one event are not two separate mailings: the database gathers the people of every rule on the event into one list and sends each rule's template to all of them.
• A rule's mail goes to the database's mail outbox and leaves through Database Mail on the workflow's account. Whether it left - with the mail server's reason when it did not - is kept on that outbox row. With the Communication Hub, database mail is listed under OUTBOX in Communications > Inbox & Outbox: your own, and everybody's (and the system's) with the preference User Can View Others Outbox.
• A mail written by hand from the Workflow Manager (Compose mail) goes through Settings > Email Account and is logged in Admin > Notification Log.

These rules tell the people on the route. To tell the party - the customer or supplier on the document - when its workflow is approved or rejected, use Communications > Automatic Messages with the event A document's workflow is decided (it needs the Communication Hub); it sends a message of your own by e-mail, SMS or WhatsApp onto the party's conversation.

13When a step is overdue - escalation #

A step is overdue once Escalate after has passed since it opened - or, if that is empty, Expiry in days. Nothing happens unless the step also names somebody under Escalate to; with nobody named, an overdue step simply keeps waiting and the Workflow Manager shows it orange.

• The check is a background job inside the API that looks about every half hour, so a step escalates within half an hour of falling due, not to the minute. It skips a company without the Workflow Management licence.
• The workflow's Keep the people already on the step ? decides what happens to the people who had it. Off (the default) hands it over: their assignments close as Escalated and the step waits on the new names. On keeps them and adds the escalation names beside them.
• A step escalates once: an assignment made by an escalation is never escalated again, so nothing travels down a chain.
• With Keep on and a completion policy of All, the step now waits on the original people and the escalation people together - use Any or Atleast if whoever answers first should carry it.

Escalating by hand

An approver can escalate their own assignment from the voucher's Workflow window or the Approvals Inbox: press Escalate, pick the people it passes to, and give remarks. Your assignment is recorded as Escalated and the people you name are added to the step as By Escalation. Escalation needs at least one name; the list offered is the people who may approve on that voucher type.

14Attaching a workflow to a voucher type #

1. Open Masters > Voucher Manager and pick the voucher type.
2. Modify, switch on Enable Work-Flow ? (General page) and save. The switch is shown only when Workflow Management is licensed.
3. In View mode, press Work-Flow Settings (ERP edition). It opens with the workflows already attached.
4. Add Work-Flow, pick the Workflow Name and, if it applies only to some branches, tick them under Applicable Branches - leave it empty and it applies everywhere. The branch list is your own branch list.
5. Save (F5). The bin on a row removes it.

• Work-Flow Settings refuses to open until Enable Work-Flow ? is on ("Enable 'Is Enable Workflow' option from general page. Then try again.") and on a non-ERP edition ("Your software version does not support this feature...").
• Every row needs a workflow, and the same workflow cannot be listed twice.
• A document enters a workflow attached to its voucher type and its branch whose activation condition holds. When none matches, the voucher's Workflow window says "No workflow is attached to this document."

15Every day - submit and decide #

On the voucher

1. Save the document, then press Workflow on the voucher's action rail. It is greyed while the voucher is being edited and before it is saved, and shown only on an ERP edition for a voucher type with Enable Work-Flow on.
2. The button carries the document's workflow status under its name, so you can read it without opening the window: Not submitted, In approval with how far through this round it is, Approved, Abandoned, or No workflow when none is attached to the document. Your turn beside it means a step is waiting on you. Rest the pointer on the button for the full sentence - where the document is and who it is waiting for. The status is read when the document opens and again after a save or a workflow action; if somebody else has acted since, open the window (or reopen the document) for the latest.
3. The window opens on one sentence saying where the document has got to and who it is waiting for, with how far through this round it is. Under it: the route (diagram or steps), each step's people, how its policy stands ("2 of 3 approved; every one of them has to approve"), who has answered and what they said, and the history - including earlier rounds.
4. Submit Workflow shows on a document that has not been submitted (unless the workflow submits by itself on save). Submitting needs the Submit Workflow right on the voucher type.
5. Approve, Reject and Escalate show only when you have an assignment waiting on an open step; otherwise the window says there is nothing for you to approve here. Every decision asks for remarks - compulsory, and kept in the history for everyone to read.

In the Approvals Inbox

• Every step waiting on you is a row under Action Required, titled with the document ("Purchase Order #4 - ABC Account Cr") and the step.
• Approve, Reject or Escalate on the row opens the decision window: remarks are required; OK (F5) records it against your own assignment through the same door the voucher uses.
• I step instructions, D step documents (read only), W the route and history, P properties - see the Approvals guide.
• Your row closes the moment you answer and carries your outcome, even while the step still waits on your colleagues.

What moves the document

• A rejection set to Revert to Creator puts the document back to not submitted. If the step allowed Editable after rejection, the raiser corrects it; then submits again, and the whole route runs from the start as a new round.
• The engine's own refusals reach you in its words - "Work flow already submitted !", "To Complete this step, ... Completion Policy: ..." - and the window stays open.

16The Workflow Manager #

The Manager watches every document in a route. It is where you find the one that has sat for a week, see who it waits on, and - if it has to be - take a step or a person out of its way. Nothing has to be selected first: pressing a button picks what it is on.

Reading the list

• It opens on Pending and Submitted documents - the ones somebody still has to act on. Tick Completed or Aborted under Workflow status to see finished routes, or Clear for all four. Set the status and the From / To dates, then press Apply filter - nothing is fetched while you are still choosing.
• Columns: date, number, voucher type, party, amount, workflow, doc status, posting, Progress, Waiting at, Waiting on, Days waiting, and the Actions at the end of the row.
• Progress is finished steps over all steps, held at 99% while anything is open - a route reads 100% only when nothing waits. Waiting at is the earliest open step; Waiting on lists who has not answered it. Days waiting counts from when that step opened (0 = today).
• A row in orange is past the open step's due date (its Expiry in days).
• The list is scoped by the report option you signed in with - all branches, your branch, or your group. The footer counts what is listed, totals its value, and gives the longest wait.
• Drag the handle between the list and the route to give either more room (arrow keys too; Home puts it back); it is remembered on this browser.

On a document (end of its row)

• Open and Print the voucher.
• Submit the workflow - only while it is still Pending. Abort the workflow - only while it is running. Abort ends the steps; the document's own status is left as the route left it.
• Time analysis - how long each step took. Workflow reports - the reports filed under the category in setting 157 (Workflow Report Category); Open the catalogue finds the rest.

On a step (its card, STEP)

• Pause - holds it where it is; nobody is asked again until it is started.
• Start - only on a paused step, and it asks everybody again: the engine opens a step by setting every assignment on it back to pending, so answers already given are erased. The dialog says how many before you press OK.
• Complete - settles it as if everybody had answered. Cancel - takes it out of the route; a reason is required and written into the history. Either way the engine then settles the document, which may open the next step or end the route.
• What it tells its approvers; its instruction document (Word and Excel open through their own program, what the browser can show opens inline, the rest downloads); everything written against it; and Compose mail - a mail about the step to the people it still waits on, with the step's subject and message filled in from the document. Pick the account it goes from, add people or files, send; it is logged in Admin > Notification Log whether it went or not.

On a person (the card's PEOPLE)

• Add - asks more people; they join as Manual, pending, beside the others. Nobody is put on a step twice, and a finished step takes nobody.
• Approve, Reject, Escalate - record a decision against that person, with your remarks.
• Cancel - stop waiting for them; the step's policy is then judged on the people left.
• Back to pending - undo an answer given in error. It does not rewind a step the engine has already settled: Start the step first if it has to wait again.
• Click a person's chip to act on them by name; otherwise the dialog asks Whose assignment, offering only the people the action can apply to.

Every one of these goes through the workflow engine exactly as a decision on the voucher does - the step settles, the next opens and the document's status moves the same way whoever did it. Neither cancel is a delete: the step or assignment is marked cancelled and stays readable.

The toolbar

• Refresh (F5), New voucher (F3) - lists the voucher types that really carry a workflow; pick one and OK opens a new document of that type - Print (Ctrl+P).
• Message log - the workflow's own status log across every document you may see, over a period (both dates empty = everything, newest 2000 first). It is not mail.
• Health check - see below.

Health check - documents stuck part-way

The health check reads every document in a route and lists the ones stuck in a state no later answer will move - most were already part-way through when the web's engine arrived. Each line says what is wrong and what to do: red (the route cannot move), amber (it can, with a hand), grey (information).

• Only documents you may see are named; findings in other branches are counted, not named.
• F5 checks again. Settle is never on a key, and acts only where the answers already decide the matter.

17Who sees what - rights, scope and licence #

• Administrators and Global Administrators hold the three Manager preferences without a tick and can hand them out.
• The Manager's list, its health check and the workflow reports are cut by the report option you signed in with (All, Branch, Group company).
• Somebody refused User Can Run WorkflowManager still gets the workflow reports, but only for the documents they raised and the ones they were asked to decide.
• The licence is read by the server, not taken from the browser: a company without Workflow Management gets a cover on every workflow screen, a voucher without the Workflow button, no Work-Flow Settings in Voucher Manager, and no automatic escalation. Workflows the desktop runs in the database are not stopped by the web licence.

18Settings that change how workflows behave #

19Workflow reports #

All six open in the standard report viewer (document, analyse, chart and pivot views; print, export, e-mail, schedule). Most cells drill: a status, a workflow or a document opens its step history.

• Reports use the Manager's rules: a step is finished when it is Completed, Approved, Rejected, Cancelled or Stopped; progress is held at 99 while anything is open.
• Approval Ageing and Approval Throughput (Admin menu) count workflow steps beside every other kind of approval.

20Moving from the desktop #

The web uses the desktop's own workflow tables. A route written on either side runs on the other, and documents submitted on the desktop show in the web's Manager and inbox.

• Conditions: the desktop's field list included names the engine cannot read (TotalLineItemQty and others), which made a workflow silently never start. The web offers only fields that resolve.
• Instructions: desktop RTF is read as plain words; web instructions are HTML, which the desktop's editor cannot read.
• Percentage behaves like All on both, because both divide whole numbers.
• The desktop's Message Log read manufacturing messages by mistake; the web's Message log is the workflow's status log.
• Documents stuck part-way from the desktop are what the health check finds.

21If something does not work #

Each screen's Help panel lists every message it can show, with the cause and the fix.