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Workflow Builder

Overview

Workflow Builder in Comala Document Control offers a number of simple ways to modify the look and feel of the currently applied workflow.

Workflow Builder can also be used to understand and communicate the content and document life-cycles within your organization, or when starting a new project with a team or customer stakeholder, allowing a visual way of exploring the workflow states and the transitions.



Using Workflow Builder

Workflow Builder can be accessed using:

Page workflows must be enabled for the instance and a workflow is not enabled in the space Document Control dashboard.

 

  • Add workflow picker when adding a workflow to a page using the page tools menu

Viewing and editing the workflow

The Workflow Builder has two main sections:

  • Workflow Panel (left side)

  • Workflow Navigator (right side)

The initial view is the workflow inspector showing the individual states in the Workflow Panel and the visual workflow diagram in the Workflow Navigator:


The workflow panel will show which mode of workflow the builder has opened.

  • Page Workflow

  • Space Workflow

The workflow panel is contextual and its contents will change according to the current task, for example editing a state; editing an approval; editing the workflow.

Workflow Panel

Use the lefthand workflow panel to display details of the workflow and edit the available custom options for the workflow.

You can also choose the workflow navigator panel workflow diagram state lozenges to change the display in the workflow panel

Workflow view

This is the default view on opening workflow builder.

Each element in the workflow view panel can be chosen to access details of the workflow including

  • workflow name

  • enabling/disabling Read Confirmation requests on transition to the workflow final (published) state

  • headers and footers of page layout

  • each workflow state and the approvals and transitions for each state

  • Workflow

Select the workflow name to open the Edit Workflow option.

A space workflow can be configured to be applied to content based on the content labels

This can be used to limit the application of a space workflow across a space. For the enabled space workflow with an added label(s), content in a space with the label automatically has a workflow applied, whilst other content is excluded from the application of the space mode workflow.

  • Page Layout

Choose Page Layout to edit the Page Header and Page Footer:

Choose +add to edit the custom page header or footer on each content using the the selected workflow:

You can choose the content visibility according to user permissions and add bespoke text or wiki markup to the header or footer.

  • Read Confirmation

The workflow can be enabled to add a read confirmation request on each transition to the workflow final state using the green tick slider.

Select the read confirmation to configure the option to add a checkbox to allow the reviewer undertaking the approval to action the transition to the final state to check an option to enable/disable the addition of the read confirmation.

If this option is unchecked the read confirmation is added automatically on the transition to the final state. There will be no option in the workflow popup for the reviewer to disable the read confirmation.

  • State

Choosing a state in the Navigator Panel will also change the workflow panel to show details of the chosen state.

The transitions can be viewed and inspected for a selected state.

If there is an approval in the state, choose the approval to view further details and the options to customize the approval

  • Workflow view


Edit Workflow

For a space workflow, the workflow can be edited for application based on a content label filter:



This allows specific content in a space to automatically have a workflow applied, whilst other content is excluded from the application of the space mode workflow.



Saving your modified workflow

When using Workflow Builder, any changes will not be saved to the current workflow unless you choose Save in the Workflow Navigator panel:

Choose Exit to return to your page (or the space tools dashboard if using Workbuilder to modify a space workflow).



The changes to the workflow are to the current workflow added to the page or space ONLY:

  • the source workflow is not affected

  • if you re-apply the source workflow, or another workflow in the same mode, your changes will be lost

  • in Comala Document Control you cannot copy any modified workflow to another page or space