Enablement Material Workflow Overview Available Workflow types and Samples

Transcription

1 Workflow Overview Available Workflow types and Samples 2010 IBM Corporation page 1/23

2 1- Introduction 1-1 Definition 1-2 Notifications Overview 1-3 Send Link Overview 1-4 Other notifications 2- Changes from 8.2 to UI Changes 2-2 Behaviour Changes 3. Workflow Overview and Types 3-1 Overview 3-2 Simple Submit 3-3 Multiple Editors 3-4 Editor in Chief 3-5 Approval Cycle 4. Workflow Samples 3-1 Holiday Requests (Editor in Chief) 3-2 Expense Requests (Approval Cycle) 3-3 Shared Documents (Multiple Editors) 3-4 Suggestion Box (Simple Submit) 2010 IBM Corporation page 2/23

3 1 Introduction Workflow is a feature of Lotus Quickr that allows the Manager or Owner of a Place to tailor the submission process for a custom form to their needs. It allows them to specify certain reviewers who must sign off on documents before they can be viewed by the rest of the Place s members, control who can edit the documents created from that form or keep a uniform style across all documents created from the form by restricting the customization options available to users when they are creating documents from the form IBM Corporation page 3/23

4 2 Changes from 8.2 to UI Changes Workflow is not a new feature in Quickr 8.5. However, there have been a number of changes to the user interface in documents created from forms with Workflow. Documents that are awaiting approval from a reviewer naturally have a number of additional options that other do not, and the placing of these options has been changed to make them easier to access. To start, when creating a document that is going to need approval from a reviewer, the creator has the option to provide a comment to the reviewer that will be included in the notification that is sent to the reviewer. In 8.5, we have streamlined the process for providing this comment instead of a two-step process where the user first chooses whether or not to add a comment and is then taken to a separate page to add the comment itself, we now embed the comment box directly within the page we are creating, and the system simply chooses whether or not to send a comment based on whether or not the document creator typed anything in the comment box The second change concerns the status information of Workflow documents. The 2010 IBM Corporation page 4/23

5 information and options that were available through the Status link within the More Actions menu have now been moved onto the page itself, allowing the user to see at a glance that the document is currently mid-workflow and whether or not they need to take action on it instead of having to manually go looking for this information Clicking the word Workflow in the link above will display a lightbox showing who has approved and who has yet to approve this document. In 8.2 this was done by clicking Status from the More Actions menu. The status text is now much easier to access as the lightbox will pop up on the current page and can be closed to return to the document immediately, whereas in 8.2 the user is taken to a separate page just to view the status IBM Corporation page 5/23

6 Clicking the link in the words approve or reject it above will open the dialog to approve or reject the document. Again, this has been changed from requiring a new page to simply opening a lightbox on the current page. Also, similar to how the page creation options have changed, the text box for adding your comment is now on the same page as the radio buttons for choosing whether to approve or reject, whereas in 8.2 the user had to explicitly choose whether or not to add a comment When a document is fully approved, and then edited, it must go through the full approval cycle again. For the reviewers who can see both the fully published version and the new draft in progress, the links for switching between the two have been changed from tabs to a simple text link next to the document s title as seen below: IBM Corporation page 6/23

7 2-2 Behaviour Changes There has only been one significant change to the behaviour of Workflow in Quickr 8.5, which is that a Manager or an Owner can now approve or reject any document in the Place, even if they are not listed as the document s current reviewer. This prevents the team s work from being held up by the absence reviewer. Managers will not see the usual status text telling the user they must approve or reject the document, but the option to approve or reject will be under More Actions. In the document below, the user is logged in as the Place Owner. The Approve/Reject link is available to them, despite the fact the Manager is the next reviewer in the queue, as indicated by the fact that the document is checked out by the Manager IBM Corporation page 7/23

8 3- Workflow Overview and Types We will now look at the four types of Workflow available within Quickr 8.5, aside from the default Standard Workflow option in which the document is published immediately and made viewable to all who can view its folder by default. 3-1 Overview Workflow is accessed through the form creation dialog, which is available to Managers and Place Owners through the Customize menu IBM Corporation page 8/23

9 Upon clicking Modify... the user is shown the different types of Workflow available to them, each of which is explained in more detail below: 2010 IBM Corporation page 9/23

10 3-2 Simple Submit The Simple Submit Workflow allows us to simplify the publishing process for a form's documents by removing various options that are normally available to the document creators which allow them to remove various elements of the document, such as the comments section, versions and the document's header. We can also remove the ability to save as a draft and change the label of the submission button. Fig 1: Simple Submit Workflow 2010 IBM Corporation page 10/23

11 3-3 Multiple Editors By default in Quickr, when a document is created only its creator, and the Place's Editors/Managers/Owner can edit it. If we want to add editing permission to other users we have to manually do so for each individual document. We can rectify this using the Multiple Editors Workflow. When a form is set to Multiple Editors, any documents created using that form will automatically be editable by all Authors in the place. Fig 2: Multiple Editors Workflow 2010 IBM Corporation page 11/23

12 3-3 Editor-in-Chief The Editor-in-Chief Workflow is one of two Workflow options within Quickr that allows the Place Manager to demand that certain documents require approval from a particular user before they are published and made public to all users within the Place. Editor-in- Chief allows the Manager to select just one user to be set as the "reviewer" for that form's documents. Whenever a user creates a document from a form with this Workflow, the designated reviewer will be ed a link to the document and told to review it. Fig 3: Editor-in-Chief Workflow 2010 IBM Corporation page 12/23

13 3-4 Approval Cycle Approval Cycle is the second Workflow option that allows the Manager to keep documents private until they have been explicitly approved by the correct user. There are a number of differences between Editor-in-Chief and Approval Cycle, however, the most obvious of which is that Approval Cycle allows us to specify a queue of up to four reviewers for a single form. Documents are sent to the first reviewer in the queue when created, and then to the second if they are approved by the first, and so on until they are made public when the final reviewer approves them. Fig 4: Approval Cycle Workflow 2010 IBM Corporation page 13/23

14 4- Workflow Samples We will now look at the four types of Workflow available within Quickr 8.5, aside from the default Standard Workflow option in which the document is published immediately and made viewable to all who can view its folder by default. 4-1 Holiday Requests (Editor in Chief) The Editor in Chief form is used to manage this team's holiday bookings. Documents of this type are automatically moved to the Holiday Requests folder. Because the event field is integrated with Quickr's calendar, when the team lead approves the request the member's time off will appear on the calendar, allowing other members to keep track of the team's upcoming holidays. 1. First, the Manager creates a new Form from within Customize, and sets its Workflow to Editor-in-Chief, specifying themselves as the reviewer IBM Corporation page 14/23

15 1. They must add a field of the Calendar Date-Time event type in order to integrate with the Quickr calendar: 1. When a member of the team submits a request for time off, the Manager receives an notification containing a link to the document. The Manager also made a specific folder for holiday requests to make it easier to find the document if the is deleted. When the Manager or the document creator opens the document, the status text informs them that the document is awaiting approval from the Manager IBM Corporation page 15/23

16 1. The Manager can then open the dialog to approve or reject the document: 2010 IBM Corporation page 16/23

17 1. After the Manager has approved this document, it will then become public to all members of the Place and appear in their Calendars, so the team can easily keep track of the time booked off by individual members. 4-2 Expense Requests (Approval Cycle) Below is an example of a use for the Approval Cycle Workflow. This team wants members to be able to request to have expenses reimbursed. Users can create a document from this form in which they specify the details of the expense. When the document is submitted it will be moved to the Expense Reports folder and their team lead will be notified. The team lead can then approve it and pass it on to the manager, who will give final approval. The document will then be moved to the Approved Expenses folder so the manager can keep track of all expenses that need to be paid out. Because the form is set to only be viewable by the creator and reviewers, those claiming expenses will still have their claims kept confidential after they are approved. 1. First the Manager creates the form within Customize and sets its Workflow to 2010 IBM Corporation page 17/23

18 Approval Cycle, then customizes the Approval Cycle options to suit the needs of this particular form as outlined above: 1. When a member of the team creates a document from the form, the notification will be sent to the team lead. The team member who created the document will not received any notification until the document is fully approved by the Manager, or rejected back to them, but in the meantime they can monitor how far along the document s approval has progressed by viewing its status: 2010 IBM Corporation page 18/23

19 1. When the document is fully approved, the creator will be notified and the document will be moved to a new folder for easier management: 4-3 Shared Documents (Multiple Editors) 2010 IBM Corporation page 19/23

20 The team can establish a library of shared Symphony or Office documents using the Multiple Editors Workflow and Quickr Connectors. The form for Shared Documents is just a plain text field - users attach documents to the pages they create from this form. All Authors in the Place will then be able to access and edit those documents from their connectors. This form also has mandatory versioning enabled, allowing users to roll back to previous versions of the documents whenever they want: 1. So, when a user creates a document from the form in the document library, like so: 2010 IBM Corporation page 20/23

21 1....all other Authors can open the document and edit it through their Connectors. This alleviates the problem of users editing documents and not checking them in to the Quickr Place, resulting in different versions of the same document being used by different members of the team: 4-4 Suggestion Box (Simple Submit) 2010 IBM Corporation page 21/23

22 This form is used as a suggestion box for issues concerning the team. There will be no option to save these forms as private drafts, they will always be made public to the team in the Suggestions folder and will have a comments tab to allow other members to give feedback IBM Corporation page 22/23

23 2010 IBM Corporation page 23/23