Intellect Platform - The Workflow Engine Basic HelpDesk Troubleticket System - A102

Intellect Platform - The Workflow Engine Basic HelpDesk Troubleticket System - A102 Interneer, Inc. Updated on 2/22/2012 Created by Erika Keresztyen Fahey

2 Workflow - A102 - Basic HelpDesk Ticketing System

Contents About this Document. 6 Getting Started. 8 Workflow. 8 Let s get started. 11 Macros. 19 Workflow Activity Ownership. 25 Other workflow properties. 26 My Activities. 28 Testing your workflow. 29 Best Practices................................ 31 Common Mistakes. 32 3

Detailed Table of Contents About this Document. 6 Requirement to this Training. 6 Additional Documentation........................... 6 Additional Training. 6 Icons Used in This Tutorial........................... 7 Getting Started. 8 Workflow. 8 What is a workflow?. 8 Workflow items. 9 Manual Activity. 9 Automated Activity. 9 Decision. 10 Sub-Workflow. 10 Split/Join. 10 Link. 11 Let s get started. 11 Designing the Trouble Ticket form layout. 11 Storing the ticket records. 13 Adding a workflow to the template. 13 Drag and Drop Activity and Decision Boxes. 14 Design workflow activities.......................... 15 About the Linked Items. 16 Modifying activities. 17 Approve/Reject field. 17 Setting The Decision Box. 18 Macros. 19 What is a macro?. 19 Types of macros. 19 4

When and Where can I use them?. 20 Continue building the workflow: Automated activity. 20 Set macro. 21 Managing macros. 22 Mail macro. 23 Workflow Activity Ownership. 25 The Owner of the first activity. 25 Role based activity ownership. 25 User Group based activity ownership. 26 Other workflow properties. 26 Setting up durations for workflow activities. 26 Setting up notifications. 27 My Activities. 28 How to access workflow activities. 28 How to modify My Activities area. 28 Testing your workflow. 29 Color-coding................................ 29 Workflow History. 30 Activity Status window. 30 Best Practices................................ 31 Role based ownership rather than user based. 31 Minimize auto notifications. 31 Common Mistakes. 32 Decision boxes. 32 Owner of the first activity. 32 Workflow cannot start or continue. 32 Extra links. 33 5

About this Document This document describes the creation of a simple Helpdesk Trouble Ticket Management System using the Intellect Platform. The purpose of this beginner training is to help you become familiar with the workflow engine of the platform. You will learn about how to create a simple workflow, and modify an existing one; how to add workflow activities and design their user interface; how to specify the ownership of the different activities as well as their duration while creating the trouble ticket record form. You will also learn about some basic, often used macros, such as the Set macro, or the Mail macro. Requirement to this Training This beginner training requires that you be familiar with how to navigate around in the Intellect Platform as well as how to create templates and tables. Additional Documentation The following user guides are also available by Interneer: Intellect Platform - User Interface Intellect Platform - Introduction Intellect Platform Macros Intellect Platform Reports Intellect Platform Access Control Intellect Platform Workflow Additional Training Interneer provides several other beginner trainings as well as intermediate and advanced trainings on how to create workflow, or how to create reports, how to integrate with other systems and many others. For further information please contact Interneer at info@interneer.com or call 1-800-558-6832. 6

Icons Used in This Tutorial Through the tutorial you will see icons in the margins that highlight special types of information. We use these to help you better understand and apply the material. When you see any of the following icons, this is what they mean: If you follow the tutorial on your computer, this icon indicates that there is an action to take, you need to do something on the computer. This icon emphasizes the information, something to definitely keep in mind. When you see this icon it reminds you for some important information that has been already covered in the tutorial. We use this icon to give you tips and tricks to help you make a successful implementation. 7

Getting Started In this training, we are going to create a Helpdesk Trouble Ticket managing system focused on the workflow engine of the platform. With this trouble ticket system you will be able to manage and track the progress of your trouble tickets submitted. Also we are going to see examples for different macros and how to set them. Processing a trouble ticket will have several steps. First, the ticket needs to be initiated, submitted to the system. Then reviewing and resolving the ticket step will follow. Finally, the person who submitted the ticket will need to verify if the resolution is satisfactory and close it or re-open it for further resolution. To enhance the workflow we will add macros to automate certain actions, such as setting the status of the process, such as In Progress or Overdue, or notify the user that the trouble ticket has been resolved. Finally we will see how to access the activities and how to modify the information that appears in the My Activities area. Last but not least, we will discuss few best practices and common mistakes. Workflow What is a workflow? A workflow diagram is a graphical representation of the flow of work in a process and its related sub processes, including specific activities, information dependencies, and the sequence of decisions and activities. More to the point, a workflow is basically the movement of tasks through a work process. It is a structured, automated way of defining who does what when. A workflow takes into account the following: How tasks are structured, Who performs them, What their relative order is, How they are synchronized, How information flows to support the tasks, How tasks are tracked. 8

Workflow items By default, a template doesn t have 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 the 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. 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. 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. You can open the activity by double-clicking on it. Automated Activity Typically this activity is used for behind the scenes calculations and macro executions. Unlike the Manual Activity, automated activities don t have a page that users interact with and no user input is required. The property page of the automated activity only has a General tab with a Label and a button that opens the macro builder. 9

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. 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 user s discretion to display its contents. Therefore, the Sub-Workflow item is primarily a visual tool, though it does have some advanced features that will not be covered in this training 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. 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 described in greater detail next. For more information on the workflow items and their properties, please refer to Intellect Platform - Workflow document. 10

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, let s 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 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. Link Linking the different elements determines the order of the activities. Let s get started Designing the Trouble Ticket form layout To utilize the workflow functionality, you will need to open the template that you plan to add your workflow to. There is no workflow without a template. So let s create a template for the Trouble Ticket and then we will create a workflow for that process. Navigate to Home > Administrative Tools > Templates and insert a template, called Trouble Ticket Remember, in order to make any configuration changes, you need to be in Edit mode. 11

Insert the following fields and set their properties: Field Name Type Property Ticket ID Number Default Value: Auto Generated Status Drop down Data list: from - New table, Values: Initiated, Resolved, Not reproducible, Re-opened, Closed Default Value: Initiated Editable: No Title Text Required: Yes Description Text Textbox size: Multiple lines Attachment File Submitted By Drop down Data list: From - User Table Default Value: [Current User] Editable: No Date Submitted Date Default Value: [Current Date] Editable: No Resolved By Drop down Data list: From - User Table Editable: No Date Resolved Date Editable: No Solution Text Append Only: Yes Ticket Information Group box If you have followed this tutorial, the Trouble Ticket template should look like this: 12

Storing the ticket records So now that we created the template, we will also want to store the different trouble tickets. A table is a container that holds multiple instances of a template. So let s create a table for the trouble tickets. Navigate to Home and insert a table based upon the Trouble Ticket template. As a result, the Table wizard opens. Select the following: Step 1/4 Table Type: Data Entry Table Step 2/4 Table Label: All Tickets Step 3/4 Columns: All Step 4/4 Table: Expanded If you want to make any changes later on, you can always open the properties window of the table in the same way as the input fields. For more information on templates and tables, please refer to Intellect Platform -Beginner Training - A101 document. Adding a workflow to the template You can add workflow only to a template. Every template can have their own workflow, independent from each other. Navigate to the Trouble Ticket template. In the top right corner there is a button that opens the template s properties window. On the Advanced tab, select Yes for Workflow. 13

As a result, two tabs appear in the top left corner of the template. 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. Click on the WORKFLOW tab and then on the Insert Item button. As a result a toolbox opens on the left side of the screen containing the different, available workflow elements. Drag and Drop Activity and Decision Boxes Now let s create the workflow. This is fun and easy and best of all it is all drag and drop. This workflow will be used to manage the trouble ticket process. The first thing that happens is that someone initiates a new trouble ticket. It s something that someone does, so that means it s a manual activity. Select a Manual Activity box and simply drag it onto the field. 14 The second step would be for someone else to review it. Drag and drop another manual activity and call it Review. After reviewing and solving the problem, the ticket initiator needs to verify if the problem was really solved. If the initiator doesn t agree with the solution, the workflow needs to go back to the review step.

Insert the following workflow elements and connect them as follows. This is what your workflow should look like so far. # Workflow Item Type 1 Initiate Ticket Manual Activity 2 Review Manual Activity 3 Verify Manual Activity 4 Resolved? Decision Box If you want to change the name of the activity, when you see a blue rectangle around the item, right click and select properties. Then in the properties window you can change the name. Tip: if you accidentally added a link, move the mouse over it and when you see a blue square around it, right click and select Delete. Design workflow activities When you insert a new instance of a template that has a workflow, the workflow starts automatically by default. This can be changed, if needed. Now if you insert a new Trouble Ticket into the table on Home, you will see an empty page. This is because you need to design a page for each of the workflow activities. 15

To do so, navigate to the Trouble Ticket template, click on the WORKFLOW tab and double click on the Initiate Ticket workflow activity. To design the page, select Insert Linked Items from the Insert Item list. In the pop-up window you will see all the input fields you previously added to the DATA tab. Check the items you want to display in this step of the workflow. Obviously check all items you want the user to fill out at this step. The first workflow activity may look like this: To design the other activities, click on the WORKFLOW tab, then double click on the activity. 16 About the Linked Items Linked items share values. If you change one of the field s value, all other fields linked to this one will have the new value. When you insert a linked item, the system makes a copy of the original field with the same set of properties. The two fields share only values, their properties are independent from each other, and therefore you can change them. For instance the Title is editable on the first workflow activity, but you can set it to read only on the following activities.

Modifying activities If you need to display another field on the activity, you can simply repeat the steps above - select Insert Linked Items and check the fields you additionally want to display. In case you want to remove a field, simply right click and select Delete from the menu. Important: when you delete a field be cautious as you might have other fields linked to this one. However if you base your design on adding source fields to the data tab and linked fields to the workflow activities, you can safely delete the fields from the activities, since the source remains intact. Approve/Reject field After the trouble ticket is resolved, the following activity is to verify the resolution. The user needs to be able to provide his feedback, if he accepts or rejects the solution. Several different fields can be used for this purpose, such as a drop down, or radio button. Intellect also has a special field for this specific purpose. In the Input Fields section of the Toolbox there is the Approve/Reject button. This field has a few built-in features; clicking on either the Approve or the Reject button, it will require the user to enter their password again for authentication. After the correct password is provided, it marks the exact date and time and which button was clicked on. So go ahead and insert an Approve/Reject field to the Verify activity. For more information on the workflow items and their properties, please refer to Intellect Platform - Workflow document. 17

Setting The Decision Box A decision is required when there are two or more possible directions the flow of work can take. For example if the resolution of the trouble ticket is not completed, the workflow goes back to the Review step, otherwise the trouble ticket gets closed. To set the Decision Box, move the mouse over, and when there is a blue rectangle around it, right click and select Properties from the menu. Then click on the Decision Branches... button and specify the condition for the branches. Navigate to the Approve/Reject button. It is located on the Verify workflow activity. By checking Workflow, it will expand and you can access the fields on the different workflow activities. After specifying the conditions, the Decision Branches of the Decision Box will look like this: 18

Macros What is a macro? In general terms, a macro is a command that automatically executes a particular task. Macros allow you to execute one or many steps with almost no effort on the part of the user beyond a simple click of a button. And sometimes, even without the need to click a button because you can also set up the macros to run automatically. Types of macros There are two types of macros: Action-oriented and structural. Action-oriented macros can be used on a stand-alone basis or in conjunction with structural macros. Some of these include the following: Set - updates the value of the field Mail - sends out and email that you define Insert - inserts an instance into a table Copy - copies an instance Move - moves an instance Delete - deletes an instance Import - imports data from excel, etc. Export - exports data to excel, html etc. Print - generates a pdf file Structural macros can be used in conjunction with the action-oriented ones, but do not perform anything on their own. They serve as modifiers to the action macros, for example, specifying when or how often the action macros should run or otherwise specifying conditions such as If, Else, For, or Exit. For more information on macros and their settings, please refer to Intellect Platform - Macros document. 19

When and Where can I use them? Macros can be used in a number of areas: On Click: Macro buttons that activate on click. On Save: Macros that run on save. Workflow: As part of an Automated Activity in a workflow. Approval Field: As part of the approval field. Scheduled: These will run based on a defined schedule that you can specify. Continue building the workflow: Automated activity We already added a status drop down field to the Trouble Ticket template for future reporting purposes. The value of this field won t change on its own; either the user or the system needs to change it. If we don t want to rely on the user s input, we need to use macros during the workflow. We cannot add macros to the manual activities; we need to add automated activities to the workflow to hold the macros. Navigate to the workflow of the Trouble Ticket template and insert automated activities and connect them to the workflow where the Status field s value should change. The updated workflow might look like this: 20

Note: labeling the Automated activities is not enough; when the workflow goes through nothing will happen. You need to add macros to the Automated activities. Set macro The Set macro is the to do macro. It is action-oriented. It is the then do what part of a statement, such as If this then, do this. Therefore, it is often used in combination with other macros, but can also be used as a stand-alone function. Navigate to the workflow of the Trouble Ticket template and open the first automated activity s properties. Then click on the Open Macro Builder button. On the left side of the screen all the available macros to use. Select the Set Macro and on the right side set the properties as follows. Item to set: select the Status drop down field Set the item to: because the Status field is a drop down field, you can access its values in the drop down on the bottom of the window. Select Resolved, then click on Save on the top. Remember! Setting the properties of a macro is not enough. Make sure you click on the Save button on the top and then the macro appears in the middle of the window, in the Steps area of the macro builder. Go ahead and add set macros to the other automated activities as well. Besides setting the status of the trouble ticket, we can change the value of any other fields. For instance, we can specify the person who provided a solution for the issue described in the ticket. 21

Managing macros You can add as many macros as you need to the macro builder area. Select the type of macro in the left hand side, set its properties on the right hand side and save it. The order of executing the different macros is important. The system will execute the macros from top to bottom. To modify the order of the macros, select the macro you want to move and use the Up or Down buttons on the top of the macro builder area. The indentation of the macros is also important. In the first example, the second Set macro is being executed only when the If statement is true, while in the second example it is being executed every time. To change the indentation of the macros, use the left or the right arrow buttons on the top of the macro builder area. To delete a macro, click on the Delete button after selecting the macro. Remember: when you delete a macro that has indented macros, the entire indented block will also be deleted, not only the highlighted macro. If you want to keep any of those macros, move them out from the indentation first. For more information on macros and their settings, please refer to Intellect Platform - Macros document. 22

So let s add a macro to mark who and when provided a solution for the trouble ticket. Open the properties of the automated activity after the Review manual activity and add a macro that sets the Resolved by field to the Current User. Also add another macro to set the Date Resolved field to the Current Date value. Mail macro Use the mail macro to send an email automatically from the Intellect Platform. For example you can notify the user when the trouble ticket is resolved. Open the macro builder and select the Mail macro on the left side. On the right side set its properties as follows. External Email: if you want the user to receive an email in his or her Outlook mailbox, leave the default setting as External Email. Internal Email: if you selected external email, leave the default setting as No. From Email: type an email address, such as no-reply@interneer.com. To Email: different tickets are submitted by different users. Instead of typing one particular email address, we can refer to the email address of the submitter user. Click on the Insert Field button and notice that there is a little + sign next to the Submitted by drop down box. That drop down is populated from the User table, therefore by expanding it, you can access the different fields of the User template. Select the E-mail field. 23

Subject: besides a predefined subject lines, you can include variables as well. Click on the Insert Field button and select the input field you wish to merge. You can add more than one field as well. Message: Similar to the subject line, you can include variables into the email body to make it more informative. By default the message portion of the mail macro is in unformatted text. By selecting the HTML option, you can format the message; using colors, control the font size etc. or by modifying the HTML. Tip: you can include hyperlinks as well, such as the url of the login page of the system, however you cannot include a link that directly points to an instance of the system. If you have followed this tutorial, the macro builder should look like this: 24

Workflow Activity Ownership The owner of the activity is the person who is assigned to complete the activity and responsible to move it forward to the next activity. To set this ownership, open the properties of the manual activity and click on the Advanced Tab. The default value is the Workflow Initiator, the user who inserted the new instance into the system. The owner of the activity also can be a specific User from the Users table, a User based upon an input field of the instance or an entire user group. Ownership can be assigned to one or more people at the same time. The Owner of the first activity A 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 than 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 in 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. Role based activity ownership The activity can also be assigned to a role by selecting User from field: Any dropdown that is populated with users can be selected for this purpose. In the Verify step we want the user who submitted the ticket to verify if the ticket is resolved with satisfaction. Note: in this particular case we can use the default value, workflow initiator as well. 25

User Group based activity ownership 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. We want any member of the Support user group to be able to review the trouble ticket. Open the properties of the Review manual activity and select the Support user group. To do that, click on the Browse icon next to the Select user group: option and expand the User Groups table. Then you can access any of the user groups; select Support. Other workflow properties Setting up durations for workflow activities The duration of each manual activity can be specified in the advanced tab of its properties page. The Estimated Completion Time field 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. 26

Setting up notifications There are two locations to set up E-Mail notifications in the workflow. The first we already covered in the automated activities section. Mail Macro, used with other macro functions, allows the user to specify notifications under various conditions. 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. 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 notifications if and when the activity status turns to Overdue, On Hold or Canceled. For more information on the workflow items and their properties, please refer to Intellect Platform - Workflow document. 27

My Activities How to access workflow activities The Personal Navigation comes with a blue bar, named My Activities that shows all the Active activities assigned to the currently-logged-in user. By default, this includes In Progress, On Hold and Overdue activities. To access an activity, simply click on its name and the activity opens in the main content area. How to modify My Activities area By default the name of the activity is shown in the My Activities area. This might not be informative enough as there might be many different instances of the same workflow activity. It is possible to display additional information about the instances for easier differentiation. To do so, navigate to Home > Administrative Tools > Screen Areas > Personal Navigation and open the properties of the My Activities derived table. On the Display tab there is a Columns section to set which columns to display. Click on Browse and check Activity name. By expanding Parent you ll see the different templates that have workflow. Expand the template, in our case Trouble Ticket and select the fields you want to see in the My Activities area; for instance Ticket ID and Title. Note: although you can select any of the columns, select only a few because of the limited space in the My Activities area. You can also set up a sort order for the activities in the Sort by section. 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. 28

Testing your workflow Color-coding On the workflow tab of the instance the activities are color coded based upon of their status. The color of the activity also appears in the My Activities area next to the name of the activity. Color White Yellow Orange Red Green Grey Status Not Started In Progress On Hold Overdue Completed Cancelled For more information on the workflow reports, please refer to Intellect Platform - Workflow document. 29

Workflow History 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. 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. 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 in 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 is In Progress, the owner is determined by the default owner specified for the activity in its properties. You can change this field manually if desired to assign the activity to another user. Status: The status of an activity drives its colors in the workflow. The color coding legend is located on the bottom left of the workflow tab. As of: This field shows the last change to the status of the activity. 30

Estimated Start: This field is calculated based on the duration of predecessor activities and the start date of the whole workflow. 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 the actual start date or estimated start date of the activity depending on the status. If the activity is in Progress, the estimated date is driven by the actual start date; if the activity has not started yet, the 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. Last Modified By: Marks the user who made any changes last on the workflow activity. Last Modified On: Marks the date of the last change. Best Practices 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. This is common if you have roles, like Project Manager, and you want to specify them in each instance. Minimize auto notifications 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. 31

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 doesn t know which way to proceed, the process will stop moving forward with a message stating that no condition has been met. Owner of the 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 in some instances, it causes confusion for the initiator most of the time. Therefore it is always good practice to assign the first activity to the workflow initiator. Workflow cannot start or continue In some rare cases the workflow elements may appear properly connected by links, but they may be not. In this case when you are on a workflow activity and you try to move forward, nothing happens when you click the Next Step button. To make sure that is not the case, move the workflow activity slightly, and the connecting links will follow it. After you made sure that the activity is properly connected, you can move it back to its previous location. If you try to insert a new instance and receive this error message, check the Start item if it is connected to the next activity. 32

Extra links Another mistake is to have more links in the workflow than is necessary. As a result, the user has more options to advance the workflow. If that happens, simply delete the unnecessary links. 33