Workflow definitions and workflow instances

Workflow definitions

A workflow definition represents a business process and describes the tasks that are involved in the process. A workflow is defined for one object type. An object type can have multiple workflow definitions, for example, for Controls, you might have two workflows: Control Assessment and Control Change Request. The two workflows reflect two different business processes for Controls. Although an object type can have multiple workflow definitions, an object can be involved in only one workflow at a time. For example, if Control ABC is going through the Control Assessment workflow, you cannot start the Control Change Request workflow for it.

A workflow definition has the following characteristics:

• A workflow definition is static.

  The actual execution of the workflow is described by the workflow instance, which holds the run-time information.

• A workflow definition has versions.

  Each time a workflow definition is published, a new version is created. By default, the new version is used by existing instances of the workflow. If a stage is removed, active instances on the stage continue to use the previous version until they progress to a stage that is available in the newly published version.

  The state of existing workflow instances does not update when a new version is published. For example, if the Assignee rules changed for a stage, the workflow instances that are currently on that stage are not reassigned. However, the new rules determine all future assignments for instances that progress to the stage or if the stage is refreshed.

  In OpenPages versions prior to 9.0.0.1, the workflow instances remain on the previous version of the workflow that they started with. If you prefer to continue with this behavior, then you can enable it in the following steps.

  1. Click Open Administration menu > System Configuration > Settings.
  2. Open the Platform settings folder, then open Workflow Implementations > OpenPages.
  3. Click Keep active workflows on the latest published version and set the Value to false.
     • If you set the Value back to true, then the workflow instances use the new published version of the workflow.
  4. Click Done.
• A workflow definition can be disabled.

  When a workflow definition is disabled, no new workflow instances based on that workflow definition can be started. Workflow instances that were already running when the workflow definition was disabled continue to run. Disabled workflow definitions can be re-enabled.

A workflow definition is made up of the following elements:

• Workflow properties define basic information about the workflow.

  You can define how the workflow can be started (manually or automatically), a start schedule, the oversight user, the overall due date, applicability, and criticality normalization. For more information, see Defining workflow properties.

• Stages represent tasks that are assigned to users.

  Stages are in the following types: start, end, and standard. For more information, see Workflow stages.

• Actions control the transitions between stages and the values on the Actions button.

  An action contains comment settings, conditions, validations and operations, email notification settings, and a setting that controls whether the action runs in the background. For more information, see Defining a workflow action.

Workflow instances

As users work in OpenPages, they start instances of workflow definitions. A workflow definition can have an unlimited number of workflow instances in progress at any time.

Administrators can view and stop active workflow instances. For more information, see Managing workflow instances.