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Screen Location: Space Tools → Document Management → Document Management tab → Workflow Action Menu (Ellipsis) → Initialize States
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Overview
This option, chosen from the actions menu on a workflow, allows you to transition all content for the associated workflow in to a specific state within that workflow.
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Select the desired state from the drop-down list and choose the Initialize states button. All content that the workflow is applied to will be transitioned to the selected state.
The workflow must be enabled for the Initialize states button to be visible.
When would I want to do this?
The most common use is after applying a workflow which uses same-space publishing to a large amount of already-published content in order to force it directly in to the Published (final=true) workflow state to ensure view only users can access it.
What are "unprocessed" pages?
When a workflow is first applied to a page in Space Mode, only the link to the workflow is created (and any page restrictions, if using Same-space publishing, are applied). The page (or blog post) itself won't actually transition in to the initial workflow state, despite it appearing that way when you look at the Workflow Status Bar. If you look at the Activity Report - Content for such pages, you'll see that there are no workflow-specific entries listed. These pages are referred to as "unprocessed".
Unprocessed pages may cause some unexpected behavior. For example
when the initial state has a due date or auto-assigned approvals, these are not displayed and potentially block the workflow from progressing
if the initial state uses a workflow parameter reference value, the value may not be available for use until a workflow process, such as a transition, occurs
As soon as any workflow-related action occurs, such as changing states or working on tasks, new entries will be added to the Activity Report and the page will be considered "processed" by the workflow.
Override current state
By default, only unprocessed pages will be affected when you initialize workflow states.
If you tick the "Override current state" checkbox, the transition will also be applied to content that is considered "processed".
The global advanced configuration setting Workflow action impersonation user group can be used when initialising states with override fails because the creator and last modifier of a page is a deleted user. A global administrator can use this setting when there is no other way to impersonate the user.