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2008

Intellect Platform: Workflow

Templates API Tool Set User Interface

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Workflow

Intellect Platform User Guide 9/24/2008

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Interneer, Inc. North 30851 Agoura Road Suite 114 Agoura Hills, CA 91301 Tel: (310) 348-9665 Fax: (310) 984-6820 Interneer, Inc. South 5901 Green Valley Circle Suite 170 Culver City, CA 90230 Tel: (310) 348-9665 Fax: (310) 984-6820

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Copyright 2008 Interneer, Inc (hereafter Interneer).All rights reserved. Company, brand and product names are, or may be, the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No screen images or features described in this document may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the written permission of Interneer.

This document was published: September 24, 2008 Version 1.0

Workflow | Intellect Platform Users Guide

About This Guide


Purpose
The purpose of this guide is to provide an understanding of how to configure workflows using the Intellect Platform.

Audience
This guide is intended for anyone who wants to understand the features and functions of workflows as well as how to configure them using the Intellect Platform.

Workflow | Intellect Platform Users Guide

Table of Contents
About This Guide .................................................................................................................................... 3 PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................................... 3 AUDIENCE.............................................................................................................................................. 3 Table of Contents.................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction and Getting Started............................................................................................................ 7 MANUAL ACTIVITY................................................................................................................................... 9 Properties General Tab ................................................................................................................. 9 Properties Advanced Tab ............................................................................................................ 11 MANUAL ACTIVITY EXAMPLE ................................................................................................................... 15 Default Owner ............................................................................................................................... 16 AUTOMATED ACTIVITY............................................................................................................................ 18 AUTOMATED ACTIVITY EXAMPLE .............................................................................................................. 20 DECISION............................................................................................................................................. 22 UNDERSTANDING BRANCHING.................................................................................................................. 24 UNDERSTANDING CONDITIONS ................................................................................................................. 26 DECISION EXAMPLE................................................................................................................................ 27 SUB-WORKFLOW .................................................................................................................................. 29 Properties General Tab ............................................................................................................... 29 Properties Advanced Tab ............................................................................................................ 31 Properties Link tab...................................................................................................................... 32 SUB-WORKFLOW EXAMPLE ..................................................................................................................... 33 SPLIT/JOIN ........................................................................................................................................... 34 Split............................................................................................................................................... 34

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Join ............................................................................................................................................... 34 LINK ................................................................................................................................................... 36 Properties General Tab ............................................................................................................... 36 Properties Conditions Tab ........................................................................................................... 36 Next Step ...................................................................................................................................... 37 Pulling it Together ................................................................................................................................ 38 DATA, WORKFLOW AND ACTIVITY TABS ..................................................................................................... 39 How to Create a Workflow ................................................................................................................... 41 CREATING AND UPDATING WORKFLOW ITEMS ............................................................................................. 41 Connecting Workflow Items .......................................................................................................... 41 ASSIGNING ACTIVITY OWNERS ................................................................................................................. 43 SETTING UP DURATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 44 Estimated Completion Date ........................................................................................................... 44 SETTING UP NOTIFICATIONS ..................................................................................................................... 45 How to Modify an Existing Workflow ................................................................................................... 46 WORKFLOW ACTIVITY STATUS WINDOW .................................................................................................... 47 Workflow Reports................................................................................................................................. 49 Work Break down Structure........................................................................................................... 49 History .......................................................................................................................................... 49 How to Access Workflow Activities....................................................................................................... 52 Generating Activity Tables .................................................................................................................... 53 Best Practices ........................................................................................................................................ 56 ROLE-BASED OWNERSHIP RATHER THAN USER-BASED:................................................................................. 56 ADDING INSTRUCTIONS TO THE ACTIVITY PAGES ........................................................................................... 57

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MINIMIZING AUTO NOTIFICATION............................................................................................................. 57 COMMON MISTAKES.............................................................................................................................. 58 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 59

Workflow | Intellect Platform Users Guide

Introduction and Getting Started


This chapter provides an overview of the workflow capabilities of the Intellect Platform. In this section, we will introduce all the tools that are available to build a workflow. To utilize the workflow functionality, you will need to open the template that you plan to add your workflow to, go to the properties of the template, and set workflow property to yes. Upon saving the properties window, a new workflow tab will appear. You can now go to the workflow tab to construct your workflow. The remainder of this section assumes that we are working in the workflow tab. When you are in Edit Mode and click on the Insert Item button at the top of the workflow area, the system displays the toolbox for the workflow on the left side of the screen. In the toolbox, you will see the following items: Manual Activity Automated Activity Decision Sub-Workflow Split/Join Link

Each of these items in the toolbox has its own properties, which can be viewed once the item has been added to the workflow area. To access the properties of any item in the workflow area, mouse over the item and make sure that a blue rectangle surrounds it. You can then right-click with the mouse and select Properties in the menu that appears. A new properties popup window will appear. In the next section, we will review each of the workflow items in greater detail. 7 Workflow | Intellect Platform Users Guide

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Manual Activity
The Manual Activity item is used when an interaction between a user and the system is required. In most cases, the Manual Activity represents a form of some kind where one or more users can upload documents, enter data, or provide an electronic approval. To add a Manual Activity, simply left-click and drag it on to the page from the toolbox. Once on the workflow page, a double left-click opens the properties page or right click and select properties. Specific properties of the Manual Activity are explained in greater detail below.

Properties General Tab


Label Use the label to name the activity thus indicating its purpose. Try to be descriptive yet concise. The better your labels are, the easier users will understand the solution. Use this field to give a more detailed description of the manual activity. This field is displayed in the properties page only, so it is more of a guide for future configuration changes. Just like an input field, you can link a manual activity to another. For a review on linking items, please refer to Intellect Platform User Guide Interface document Standard Properties for All Input Fields section.

Description

Linked To

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Next Steps

This is one of the ways to set what the following step or steps should be. Instead of moving arrows around, you can easily access the next workflow activity in this area.

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Properties Advanced Tab


Default Owner - The Default Owner is the person responsible for completing the activity moving the workflow to the next activity. The default value of the Default Owner of an activity is the Workflow Initiator. If this value is not desired, other options include assigning a specific User from the Users table, assigning a User from a field on a page, or selecting a User Group from the User Groups table. Ownership can therefore be assigned to one or more people at the same time. Assigning a group to a workflow activity implies that any member of that group can access, update, and advance that activity once it becomes active. Unless the transfer ownership option that appears upon selecting a user group as default owner is checked off, the first person to click in to the activity does not retain control. In any case, once the activity is advanced, none of the group members can make changes. Accessible Just like in the input fields, you can set access control privileges for workflow activities. To set up access control for this workflow item, click on the Accessible To button. When you click Accessible To, a new screen displays. From that screen you select the various levels of control, such as read and

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write privileges, etc.

For more information on Access Control, please refer to the Access Control section of the Intellect Platform User Guide.

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Estimated Completion Time sets the duration of the activity, the primary goal of which is to notify users of delays and to make visual changes to the workflows. If the activity has not been completed within the estimated completion time, the system automatically sets the status of the activity to Overdue. The Estimated Completion Time is also used by the system to set the Estimated Completion Date based upon the Estimated Start Date and Completion Time. These fields are accessible in the Activity Status window. Simply click on the Activity Status button on the top right corner of an activity page, and it will open at the bottom of the screen. Notification The Intellect Platform has built-in automated email notifications. By default these notifications are turned off. Auto notifications can be set to send when any of the following conditions are met; The activity is initiated (status set to In Progress), The estimated end date shifts due to a previous delay in the workflow, The activity becomes overdue, cancelled or on hold.

All 3 notification types are email macros. To read more about the email macro, please refer to the Business Logic section of the Intellect Platform User Guide. From E-Mail- You can easily turn on any of these notifications by setting the External E-Mail question to Yes.

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For your convenience, the From E-Mail and the To E-Mail fields are pre-populated, as is the subject line. You can change these values and also place your own e-mail body into the Message field.

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Manual Activity Example


Here is an example of a Manual Activity. This example is from Interneers Expense Management solution, showing the Manager Review step. The basic premise of this workflow is that an employee has incurred some reimbursable expenses, and they wish to submit a request for that reimbursement to their direct manager. The manager in turn is able to view the request, including dates and copies of receipts for example, and either approves the request for processing by Finance, or rejects the request, with or without asking for additional clarification.

The properties of this manual activity look as follows:

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Default Owner
Note the Default Owner area. In this case, the Workflow Initiator is the user who submitted the Expense Report. In this step, we wanted the manager of the workflow initiator to be able to access the activity and process it. In the template, there is a field indicating the manager of the user. So in the Advanced Tab of the manual activity, we used the User from field option and selected the Manager field in the data portion of the template to set ownership. Also, an Activity Assignment Notification was set to notify the manager that a new expense report has been submitted and is waiting for approval. These types of notifications are very handy in cases where users do not log in to the system frequently. The From, To, and Subject fields were pre-filled, and we edited the

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Message field.

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Automated Activity
Typically this activity is used for behind the scenes calculations and macro executions. Unlike the Manual Activity covered in the last section, automated activities dont have a page users interact with and no user input is required. The property page only has a General tab with a Label and a button that opens the macro builder.

Label - Use the label to name the activity and indicate the purpose of the automated activity. Try to be descriptive yet concise. The better your labels are, the easier users will understand the purpose of the activity. Macro Create different macros using the Macro Builder. An example is provided below. For more information on Macros, please refer to the Business Logic section of the Intellect Platform User Guide.

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Automated Activity Example


Here is an example for the automated activity. This activity is automatically executed right after the manager, as in the previous example, clicks on Next Step after approving the Expense Report. The properties of this activity look as follows: In the Macro Builder you would find the macro shown in the figure. This macro sets the date of the managers approval, sets the Estimated Reimbursement date based upon the approval date, and does many other necessary calculations.

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Decision
A decision is required when there are two or more possible directions the flow of work can take. A very simple example would be an approval process. If the item in question is approved, the workflow will go in one direction. If the item is not approved, it may take an entirely different direction. The decision variable, the item that

determines the next direction of the workflow, may be input by a user, or may be determined by an automated activity. As with any workflow item, the properties popup can be accessed for the Decision item by right-clicking the item itself and selecting Properties from the list. The Decision items Properties window has only a General tab with two possible choices: the Label for the Decision, which will appear on the workflow page, and the Branches, which determine the different directions the flow of work can take based on specified criteria.

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Label - Use the label to name and indicate the purpose of the decision. Try to be descriptive yet concise. The better your labels are, the easier users will understand the application. Note that each branch of the Decision will have a label as well. It therefore often makes sense to have the Decision Label be a question, and the branch labels to be the possible outcomes. Again, a simple example would be Approved? as the label for the Decision, and yes and no as the labels for the branches.

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Understanding Branching
Branches Opening the Decision Branches area, you can set different directions for the workflow to follow. There are four columns to specify for each branch. We will cover each in greater detail below. You are not limited to 2 directions. Keep in mind however that simplicity is always best. If at all possible, it is always best to lean toward fewer workflow items on the page in general to reduce a cluttered look and to make the workflow diagram easier to understand. You can insert additional branches by clicking the Insert Decision Branch button. You can also insert branches from the workflow page. To do so, insert a new link from the Toolbox and connect the starting point to one of the nodes on the Decision box. You can insert as many such links as you wish in this manner. (Note: it is possible, and often required, to have multiple links eminating from a common node.) When you return to the properties of the Decision item, you will see that a new branch has been added for each of the links you added to the workflow page. You can then update the conditions by which each branch would be taken. Use the Label to name the workflow link (the actual line on the workflow page) associated with branch of the decision. Try to be descriptive and make sure to add a branch for all possible outcomes. For instance, in our

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previous example, it wouldnt make sense to have an approve/reject decision followed by only an Approved branch. If the manager chose to reject the item, the workflow would have nowhere to go, the submitter would not be notified, and no additional action would be taken by the system.

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Understanding Conditions
Conditions are the core of the branches, so to speak. They define the logic by with the system determines which branch, or branches, to take. Why do we say branches? This is because each Condition for each Branch is checked by the system independently. The system does NOT stop checking conditions once one has been met. In theory therefore, all branches of a Decision box could be activated at once. Although it is possible, it is not recommended to do so. In such a case, a Split item (to be covered later) would be more appropriate. Suffice it to say then that each Condition is evaluated independently. When you click on the Edit Condition button for a particular branch, you are presented with another popup. This popup is the same as you would see when setting a visibility condition for example (please see the Visibility section in the Intellect Platform User Interface Guide). Once you have set your conditions, you simply need to tell the system where to go next when the conditions are satisfied. The Go To field is therefore a pointer to the next workflow item you would like to be activated once your condition has been met. To remove any branches, simply click on the Delete button of the branch.

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Decision Example
Here is an example of the Decision item. This decision occurs right after the manager, in the example above clicks on Next Step after having made her decision to either approve or reject the reimbursement request. The properties of the Decision and the branches look as follows:

Note that in this example, the manager either approves the Expense Report or rejects it. So there are two possible outcomes, meaning two branches are needed. If the managers decision is to approve, the user is notified along with the finance department. If not, only the

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user is notified.

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Sub-Workflow
Many business processes are not simple. This means that there are many steps, decisions, branches, automated activities, etc. and the final workflow diagram can become unwieldy. To make matters worse, we are constrained to the size of our computer screens. To compensate for these challenges, the Sub-Workflow item allows users to group pieces of a workflow together, and to then store them inside of one box on the screen. This one box, the Sub-Workflow, can then be expanded at any users discretion to display its contents. Therefore, the SubWorkflow item is primarily a visual tool, though it does have some advanced features that will not be covered in this document. When you group workflow elements, be aware that the sub-workflow, just like the workflow, has one input and one output. This means that you must consider this limitation in your initial design. You can however connect a workflow element inside of a sub-workflow to another element outside of that sub-workflow. In this case, the line will appear dashed to indicate that it is not one of either the input or the output.

Properties General Tab


Label - Use the label to name and indicate the purpose of the sub-workflow. Try to be descriptive yet concise. The better your labels are, the easier users will understand the application. A sub-workflow often may serve an independent purpose. It therefore makes sense to use that purpose in the label. An example might be Approval Process.

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Description Use this field to give a more detailed description to this part of the workflow. This description only appears in the properties page.

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Properties Advanced Tab


Default Owner You can set up the owner of the sub workflow. By default this person is the workflow initiator. You can also choose one particular user or a user from a field, such as the project manager. Estimated Completion Time shows the duration of the entire sub workflow based on the duration of the activities in the sub-workflow. If the sub workflow has still not been completed within the estimated completion time, the system automatically sets the status of the sub workflow to Overdue. Same Sub-Workflow For Each Application (use) by default this is set to yes meaning that for every instance of this template, this sub workflow will follow the same steps. Selecting No for this property leaves the sub-workflow blank to set it up in every instance separately. This provides the added flexibility of having different workflows for each instance. For example, your approval process may change entirely based on the characteristics of each project, and you may not be able to define a process that includes every possibility. In this case you can create a sub-workflow by setting same subworkflow for each application to no. Then the project manager could define the approval sub-workflow of the project on a per project basis.

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Properties Link tab


Just like the input fields, sub workflows can also be linked to other workflows. When you select yes, further options become accessible. Use this feature when you want to nest the workflow of another template into this workflow. Linking the sub-workflow to another workflow is Advanced Topic. For now just leave the Linked option as No what is the default value.

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Sub-Workflow Example
We used Interneers Expense Management application to show you examples for manual and automated activities and also for decisions. The workflow for the Expense Report looks as

follows:

As you can see, this workflow doesnt contain a lot of activities, and no sub-workflow was necessary. However, you may find cases with many more activities in a workflow. It is often the case that these activities may be owned by different departments. Under such circumstances, it is highly recommended to group certain activities and place them into sub-workflows. The concept is similar to, for instance, grouping files under folders.

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Split/Join
The Split/Join item has two primary purposes: 1) to split a single incoming process step into multiple, simultaneous process steps, or 2) to determine whether any single previous process step or all previous process steps must be completed prior to moving past the join point. Each of these will be briefly described in greater detail next.

Split
Split A split item allows one activity or process step to kick off multiple activities (process steps) simultaneously. For example, the first step in a process may include filling out some basic information for a request: who is submitting it, reason for request, date of requested completion, estimated costs, etc. Once this intake step is completed, we may wish for this information to be sent to two different people simultaneously perhaps to get financial and technical approval separately for example. In this example, the split item is a simple way to direct the flow of work in two (or more) directions.

Join
Join Taking our previous example one step further, lets assume that before a manager can make a final approval for the request, that the approvals from both the technical AND financial sides must be received. In this case, we need to use a join item to specify that both approvals must be received before moving to the final step. In the Properties of the join item, there is only one tab with two possible choices to make. Selecting And requires that EVERY

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previous activity be completed before the next activity is triggered. Selecting Or implies that the completion of ANY of the previous activities can push the workflow forward to the next activity.

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Link
Linking the different elements determine the order of the activities.

Properties General Tab


Label - Use the label to name the activity and indicate the purpose of the link. Try to be descriptive yet concise. The better your labels are, the easier the users will understand the purpose of the link.

Properties Conditions Tab


The property set on this tab varies based on the elements this link connects in the workflow. If the link is for connecting a decision to another workflow item, the Execute Link When property is available. From this property, you can set the condition when the link gets executed. This is the same as setting the properties of the decision this link is originated from. The Associated Button is Visible property is available when the link is connecting a manual activity to another workflow item.

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Next Step
If there are multiple options for the owner to advance an activity, the next step button on the activity page comes with a drop down list where the user can choose the Next Step to follow. Every option in the Next Step dropdown corresponds to a workflow link originated from this activity. Setting up a visibility condition for the link defines when the corresponding drop down option appears in the next step list.

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Pulling it Together
In the previous section, we introduced the building blocks of the workflow and their properties. This section covers how to design and develop a workflow utilizing these building blocks. Workflows are created from the properties of templates. By default, workflow is not turned on for any new template. To add a workflow to any template, we need to turn on the workflow property located under the Advanced tab of the property window for that template. Remember, you need to have the Edit Mode turned on to go to the properties of the template. Upon selecting Yes for the workflow property, two tabs appear at the top left corner of the content area. These include: The DATA tab, which remains as the workspace for all the data elements of the template, and The WORKFLOW tab, which shows the workflow of the template.

Before the workflow is activated, the template only consists of the Data section and no tabs are present.

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Data, Workflow and Activity Tabs


The DATA tab contains all the data entry fields, working as a data repository for the template. This area is the same as the template page before turning the workflow on. You can think of the Data section as the repository of every piece of data one would ever want to capture for the purposes of a particular template. The WORKFLOW tab depicts the visual presentation of the process flow drawn by the configuration specialist. The purpose of this workflow is to define the rules by which users interact with different pieces of data from the Data tab the who, the what, and the when. Each activity becomes a view into the data. As previously discussed, Manual Activities (trapezoidal shapes) define end user interactions to complete certain parts of a process defined by the workflow, and to move the process forward by validating that their portion of the process is completed. To view the contents of an activity, double click on the activity and the system will then open the activity page in a third (ACTIVITY) tab. This dynamic tab disappears when the user navigates out of the activity. An Activity tab provides a filtered view of the Data tab to focus on the data elements important for the activity in question. Activities can also include data fields that are not part of the data tab, such as activity instructions.

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How to Create a Workflow


Creating and Updating Workflow Items
One unique aspect of the platform is that design and creation (configuration) are seamless. While designing your workflow, you can drag items from the toolbar into the workflow space. A blank workflow tab has two elliptical shapes; these are the start and finish points. These are not activities and simply represent the starting and ending nodes of the workflow. The Start should be linked to only one item in order to properly start a workflow. However, multiple items can be linked to Finish. Among those many links to Finish, whichever is executed first will end the process. If you wish for multiple links to be executed before a process is completed, you can add a Join item before the Finish and assign an and condition to its properties. When the cursor moves over a workflow item, you see a blue frame surrounding it. You can drag any item to move it by simply selecting it (left click and hold) when you see the blue frame. You can also delete an item or update its properties by right clicking on it when you see the blue frame.

Connecting Workflow Items


The most common way to connect two items is to create links by using hot spots on the workflow items themselves. Each corner and middle point of the sides of toolbox items can be used to create links. When you hover over these hot spots, the cursor changes to a link icon. In such a case, you can create a link by left clicking with the mouse, and without releasing, dragging the end of the link to another designated workflow item. As you get closer to a workflow item, the link will snap to it. You can still move the link as long as you dont release the mouse button. To reselect a link, go to either the beginning or

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the end of the link as soon as you see the blue frame around the item and then start dragging the item.

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Assigning Activity Owners


Manual activities are by default assigned to the Workflow Initiator. This means, if not changed, whoever inserts an instance of the template also receives and sees the activities of that instance under My Activities in the personal navigation area. Each manual activity can be set up to be assigned to a user, a role or a group. To update the default owner, go to the activity and open the advanced tab in the properties page. If a User: is selected for the default owner, for all the instances of the process, the particular activity will be assigned to the selected user. The activity can be assigned to a role by selecting User from field: Any dropdown that is populated with users can be selected for this purpose. To give an example, you can assign an activity in your project to the project manager who is determined by the Manager drop down in the Data tab. This way, even though the role the activity is assigned to remains the same, since different projects will have different users in the manager role, the owner of the activity will vary with each new project.

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Setting up Durations
The duration of each manual activity can be set from the advanced tab of its properties page. The field name is Estimated Completion Time and it accepts calendar days. The duration determines the number of days an activity status remains In Progress before being marked as Overdue by the system in its nightly processes. The durations are also used to calculate Estimated Completion Dates of activities.

Estimated Completion Date


Estimated Completion Date of an activity is calculated by duration and Estimated Start Date or Actual Start Date of the activity, depending on its status. If the activity has not been started, the Estimated Start Date equals to estimated start date plus the duration. However, if the activity is in progress the Estimated completion date is calculated as Actual Start Date plus the duration. Note: Since the granularity of the duration is in days, the Estimated Start Date of a successor is set to one day after the Estimated Completion of its predecessor.

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Setting up Notifications
There are two locations to set up E-Mail notifications in the workflow. The first is in the automated activities. Mail Macro, used with other macro functions, allows the configuration specialist to set notifications under various conditions. To read more about the email macro, please refer to the Business Logic section of the Intellect Platform User Guide. Manual activities have the functionality to send out auto notifications under certain conditions as well. These conditions are Activity Assignment, Date Slippage and Negative Status Change. They are all set from the advanced tab of the properties page as demonstrated previously. To activate these e-mails, click on the Browse button of the Notification type, and in the pop up window, select Yes for External E-Mail ?. Activity Assignment: This Notification triggers when the activity status changes from Not Started to In Progress by completion of its predecessor. The default receiver is the owner of the activity, but other receivers can be set or added. Date Slippage: As mentioned in the Setting up Durations section, estimated completion dates of activities are driven by the estimated start dates or the actual dates. In the case of a delay in the completion of an activity, date Slippage notifications will be sent out. Negative Status: This notification, once set, will send out email notification if and when the activity status turns to Overdue, On Hold or Canceled.

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How to Modify an Existing Workflow


The most important thing to keep in mind while updating an existing workflow is that instances already created in the system will be affected by this change. If, for example, a new activity is added to the workflow, this new activity will appear in previously added instances and will appear with a status of not processed. This may result in a workflow view where there are activities labeled as not started while their successors and predecessors are all complete. The same rules apply for automated activities, sub-workflows and decision boxes. Needless to say, although the system is highly flexible, a great degree of care and planning must be employed. Continuous changes should not be made on the fly, no matter how simple. This is not a restriction of the system, but rather a best practice to minimize issues with user adoption and others.

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Workflow Activity Status Window


Each manual activity has the data elements shown in the figure to the right. They can be reached by clicking on the Activity Status button at the top right corner of the activity page. The Activity Status Pane appears at the bottom of the activity page once this button is clicked. Owner: This field determines which user(s) own(s) the activity. This field remains blank until the activity changes to In Progress. When it goes In Progress, the owner is determined by the default owner set for the activity in its properties. You can change this field manually to assign the activity to another user by simply selecting another user in this drop down. If the owner is set to someone other than who is defined by the default owner, the system will prompt a message stating that the owner is no longer linked to the default owner. This means the system will not take the default owner settings into account in case the activity goes back to in progress by a loop-back process. The manually selected owner will remain as the owner. The owner field is a multi entry field and supports the ability to assign an activity to a user group. However, an activity can be assigned to multiple users only by setting the default owner to a group. The system will not allow users to assign an activity to multiple users manually. Status: The status of an activity drives its colors in the workflow. The color coding legend is located at the bottom left of the workflow tab. As of: This field shows the last change to the status of the activity. Estimated Start: This field is calculated based on the duration of predecessor activities and the start date of the whole workflow.

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This field cannot be updated. The estimated start date is one day after the estimated completion of the previous activity. Estimated Completion: The Estimated Completion date is calculated by adding the duration to either actual start date or estimated start date of the activity depending on the status. If the activity is in Progress, the estimated and date is driven by the actual start date; while if the activity has not started yet, estimated completion is driven by the estimated start date. Actual Start: This is the date when the activity changes to in progress. Actual Completion: The date when the activity status is set to Complete by clicking on Next Step.

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Workflow Reports
On the workflow tab, the workflow views button located on the top right of the content area provides a variety of views of the workflow for monitoring purposes.

Work Break down Structure


This option provides a tabular view of activities with status information. Sub workflows can be expanded by clicking on the plus sign to the left of the row.

History

The History view keeps the log of changes to the activity statuses. Each row in the history view represents an update to an activity and the values in the row shows the final status of the updated activity.

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Tasks by Status: This is a view of all the activities in the workflow grouped by the status field. The report opens up on the personal navigation area and each activity label serves as a short cut to access to the activity page. Schedule: This is a Gantt-Chart view of the workflow. The timeline shows start and end dates of the activities. The bars on the time chart also serve as shortcuts to the

activity pages.

Turn Grid Off: This is a toggle switch to turn on and off the grids on the workflow pane. Microsoft Project: This is to export the workflow to an MS Project Document.

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How to Access Workflow Activities


Personal Navigation comes with a bar, named My Activities that shows all the Active activities assigned to the currently-loggedin user. This includes In Progress, On Hold and Overdue activities. The default settings are set to view the Activity Name as the activity label under the My Activities Tab. This can be changed to instance name by changing the sorting settings in the My Activities derived table. Navigate to Administrative Tools>Screen Areas>Personal Navigation to update this table. When the Show header for first sort option is selected in the properties of the activity table, the activities will be grouped by the first field selected in the sorting property. If you want to change the field the activities are grouped by, set the desired field as the first field the activities are grouped by.

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Generating Activity Tables


Just like other reports, you can create activity reports by querying the activities in the system. The query will have to include a where history is no statement in order to get a report on the current activities. Lets look at an example. You can create a report showing the upcoming Expense report activities like the one below by taking the following steps:

1. From the Toolbox, open the Table bar and select Workflow Activity to start the Table Wizard. 2. Select Reporting Table as the Table Type 3. Select the From Query window to set the query for the table.

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4. Set the Status to is not Completed, Cancelled or Not Started, to see only the activities in Progress or Overdue. 5. Set the History to No.

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Best Practices
Finally lets talk about some best practices, tips-n-tricks, and common mistakes.

Role-Based Ownership Rather than User-Based:


When an activity is assigned to a specific user, the only way to change the user is by going to the template and updating the properties of the activity in Edit Mode. This is a more rigid set up than assigning the activity to a user defined in a drop down field. You can create a drop down in your template to select a user and have your activity receive the default owner from this field. This set up allows you to not only change your default user without having to go to Edit Mode, but it also allows different default owners for every instance of the template.

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Adding Instructions to the activity pages


It is always good practice to have instructions for the end users outlining the actions they need to take to complete their activities. You can use a non-editable rich text field to provide

instructions on the activity pages.

Minimizing Auto Notification


Although setting auto-notifications are in high demand while setting up workflows, it should be noted that the primary purpose of the workflow is to leverage the visibility over the process and minimize the communication required. Adding unnecessary auto notification hardly serves this purpose. An option is to give the end user the ability to exclude themselves from the auto notification list if they so desire.

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Common Mistakes
Decision Boxes One of the most common mistakes working with decision boxes is not covering all the possible scenarios while setting up decisions in the workflow. This is a major issue since if the workflow comes to a decision point and doesnt know which way to proceed; the process will stop moving forward with a message stating that no condition has been met. Owner of First Activity Another common mistake may occur while setting up the owner for the first activity in the workflow. If the workflow is turned on for a template, the system automatically kicks off the first activity in the workflow when a new instance is initiated. If the first activity is assigned to a user other then the user who is inserting the new instance (Workflow Initiator), the system will create the instance without allowing any input from the initiator. Although this might be acceptable on some instances, it causes confusion for the initiator most of the time. Therefore it is always a good practice to assign the first activity to the workflow initiator.

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Conclusion
Now you have a basic idea of some of the things you can do with workflow. Need more ideas? Want help with configuring workflows, sub-workflows or setting up email notifications? Let Interneers team of professionals assist you. Dont hesitate to contact our Professional Services

Call us: (310) 348-9665


Or Fax: (310) 984-6820
team or our Customer Support department.

Intellect Platform Users Guide


The following documents are sections to the overall Intellect Platform Users Guide. Introduction to the Intellect Platform Provides an extensive overview to the system, including an introduction to each of the listed modules. Describes the toolbars, menus, screens, and personal navigation area. Provides an understanding of access control, including access control types, use case scenarios, an introduction to the hierarchical structure of the system as well as a list of key points to keep in mind when configuring access control. Describes how to create real-time maps of business processes. Provides instructions on creating pie charts, bar charts, consolidated and statistical tables within the Intellect Workflow | Intellect Platform Users Guide

User Interface

Security

Workflow

Reports

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Platform. Business Logic Details how to use macros in the Intellect Platform. Describes how to integrate the Intellect Platform with non-Intellect Platform applications. Also included: Intellect Platform Web Services.

API Tool Set

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