Getting started with Comala Document Control

Overview

Workflows help you manage the review and approvals process for a document. 

The workflow in the diagram above consists of two states: Review and Approved.

Each workflow allows you to

• ensure that page content is reviewed and signed-off

• assign specific users as reviewers for the content review in a workflow state

Only one workflow can be active on an individual page or blog post at any one time.

Workflows in Comala Document Control

Comala Document Control for Cloud has the choice of at least three bundled workflows available on installing the app.  Each of these workflows has different states, transition routes between states and content review activities.

• Basic Approval Workflow

• Content Expiry Workflow

• Quality Management System Workflow

Each installed workflow builds on the basic approval workflow - adding more states and transitions, setting an expiry period for approved content and automatically assigning content reviewers to provide greater control of your document development and management.

Adding a workflow to content

You can add a workflow to your content in two ways

• individually to each document
  

• across all the content in the space using the space tools Document Control dashboard

Applying a workflow to all space content using the Document Control dashboard allows greater central management of your content and is the recommended use of a Comala Document Control workflow in a production environment.

Space workflows

A space admin can configure a space to add and apply a workflow to all content in the space.

The space admin simply enables the current workflow. Once enabled it will be added and applied to all existing content in the space. The workflow will also automatically be added to any new documents created in the space.

Comala Document Control only allows one space workflow to be applied to content in the space at any one time. This maintains the requirement that only one workflow can be active on a document at any one time.

Workflow added and applied to a page

Once a workflow is added and applied to content

• automatically defines content as approved or draft depending on the state

Content with an added workflow will have a breadcrumb for the current workflow state added to the content page sub-title.

If the content has previously been approved an added View approved byline link to the last approved version.

Choose the View approved to view the last approved version.

When viewing this last approved version of the content

• the byline  Approved (Compare versions) is displayed confirming this is an approved version

• and a link View pending approval to the current draft content version.

A user's key interaction with the workflow added to content is through the workflow popup accessed this breadcrumb.

Workflow states can be hidden from the progress tracker path.

In the example, the Rejected state is hidden. The hidden state will be displayed in the workflow popup if it is a destination for a content review decision.

The hidden state will also be displayed in the popup progress tracker path when the workflow content is in that state.

For the Quality Management Systems workflow, the In Approval state content review has assigned reviewers and the requirement for reviewer credentials using an e-signature.

The workflow popup will have the available options for moving the workflow from the current state to one or more destination states.

The popup progress tracker bar can be used to view the states in the workflow and will display the next state available.

The movement between these states is called a transition - these transitions occur based a user approving content, rejecting content or updating content.