Adding references

References to documents and folders on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems can be added by users of a workflow automation. These references allow users to add information important to their work.

Before you begin

In the editor, you must select Allow external document references , Allow external folder references or both from the Folder Management section of the Folders tab. You must configure a Responsive Document Explorer control in a coach, which contains the controls to add the references.

About this task

Users add references by selecting the ECM server where they want a reference. Then, they add the reference to a document or folder on that server. The Responsive Document Explorer that the users work with must be connected to the BPM managed store.

This procedure describes the default behavior when you use the Add Reference control in the Responsive Document Explorer. However, you can customize this control for your own circumstances. See the Example section that follows the procedure.

Procedure

  1. Start the Responsive Document Explorer and click +. Click Add Reference.
  2. In the Add Reference dialog, select a server from the External ECM Server drop-down list. The servers are the Enterprise Content Management servers that are defined in the Workflow Automation Settings page.
    For example, you might have two servers. One server provides corporate information for a division in Toronto and another server for corporate information in New York. You select the Toronto server. If your process selected both the Allow external document references and Allow external folder references check boxes, you see the documents and folders on the Toronto server.
  3. Select a document or folder that you want to add to your process.
    For example, you select a folder that is called Tax Information that contains tax documents. Since your process covers both Toronto and New York, in the Reference As field you add the name Toronto Tax Information Documents. A name in this field is not necessary. If you do not add a name, the name of the document or folder on the ECM system is used.
  4. Do you want to add several references? Selecting Add another reference keeps the dialog open for more references.
  5. You can also add documents and folders at the same time as adding references to documents and folders. The ability to add a document or folder is helpful when you realize as you are working with references that your process needs to reference new documents and folders.
    1. To add a document, click Add Document. Select a file for the content of the document, a document type, and fill in any require properties. Selecting Add another document keeps the dialog open to add more documents. Click OK when finished. Your new documents are listed in the Add Reference dialog.
    2. To add a folder, click Add Folder. Add a name for the folder. Selecting Add another folder keeps the dialog open to add more folders. Click OK when finished. Your new folders are listed in the Add Reference dialog.
    To add a document or folder requires the permission to do so. When you navigate to a server and folder combination where adding a document or folder is not permitted, then you do not see Add Document or Add Folder.
  6. Click Create Reference to add the reference. Continue adding references if you selected Add another reference.
  7. From the list of references that are created, you can select actions on these documents and folders.
    For example, you might open the Toronto Tax Information Documents folder. You are working on the external ECM server when you use these actions. Since you are working on the external ECM system, you can download documents, add documents to the external ECM server, and create folders. You can do any action that is allowed on that ECM server.
  8. When finished, close the Responsive Document Explorer.

Example

You can customize the behavior for Add Reference. One way to customize the behavior is to copy the Default Get Related ECM Folders Service and modify the code. For example, the default service implementation returns information on the root folders of all available servers of the workflow automation in which the process instance was started. The service returns the server name, display name, and an object ID of each root folder. However, in a certain context you might want only information about a specific folder in the folder structure of a server. By modifying your copy to get only that folder, your users do not need to browse through the entire set of returned folders. To add your customized behavior to the Responsive Document explorer, replace the Default Get Related ECM Folders Service configuration option with your own customized service.