Workflows

Workflow is a tool that allows configuring complex processes across the solution. The Workflow Editor displays processes visually as a set of boxes and arrows representing transitions, conditions, and stages. Set the sequence of steps and stages your business needs by using various types of activities: utilities, conditions, approvals, subflow, and timer.

Workflow is a complex tool consisting of the following parts:

• Properties: general information and settings of a workflow such as its name, table on the basis of which the workflow runs, conditions to start executing the process, description of the workflow.
• Versions: workflow versions stored in the Workflow Versions table.
• Activities: a set of operations arranged in a particular order and performed by the workflow (for example, changing the value of a certain field).
• Activity Exits: conditions to be met to proceed to a particular transition.
• Transitions: the connection between the activity exit and the next activity.
• Contexts: information about every time a workflow was executed, stored in the Workflow Context table.

Workflow life cycle

The workflow starts running when conditions specified in the parameters are met. Usually, starting conditions are record insertion, field update, field with a particular value. For example, the Incident table has a workflow executed every time a new record is created.

After the starting event, the workflow executes activities one after another according to the defined transitions. As a rule, activities have more than one transition – the path taken depends on the activity outcome.

Within an activity, workflow performs the following steps:

1. Operation defined by the activity is executed.
2. Activity conditions are checked.
3. Depending on the previous step's outcome, the workflow transitions to the defined activity.

Workflow states 

Generally, the workflow can be in one of two states:

• Checked Out – for editing new or existing workflows.
• Published – for the finalized workflows ready to be run; finalized but unpublished workflows are inactive and non-functional.

Checked Out

When you start working on your workflow (whether a new or existing one), it is in the Checked Out state. Other users cannot edit this workflow along with you since the workflow is already checked out. Also, the workflow is inactive when checked out; it needs to be published to enable it.

To enable editing a published workflow, perform the following steps:

1. Open the workflow you need in the Workflow Editor.
2. Navigate to the burger menu .
3. Click Check Out.

Published

When the workflow configuration is completed, and the process is ready to run, you need to change the workflow state to Published. After that, users are not able to edit the workflow (until it is back to the Checked Out state).

To publish a workflow, perform the following steps:

1. Open the workflow you need in the Workflow Editor.
2. Navigate to the hamburger menu .
3. Click Publish.

How it works

1. You are creating a new workflow (version 1, for example). It has the Checked Out state equal to 'true' and the Published state equal to 'false'.
2. You have finished configuring this workflow and decided to publish it. You click Publish, and your workflow now has the Checked Out state equal to 'false' and the Published state equal to 'true'.
3. In a while, you need to modify it, and you make a checkout, this has happened:
   1. A copy of the existing workflow has been created.
   2. The existing workflow was not affected.
   3. The copy created has the Checked Out state equal to 'true' and the Published state equal to 'false'.
4. You have finished editing this copy and published it (it is now version 2), this has happened:
   1. The previous workflow (version 1) moves to workflow archive (now it has the Checked Out and Published states – both equal to 'false').
   2. The workflow you were working on (version 2) is now the active one.

Workflow Contexts

The process of execution of workflows is reflected in the table of Contexts. To view the list of active contexts, navigate to Workflow → Active Contexts. To view the list of all contexts, navigate to Workflow → All Contexts.
By viewing the contexts in the Workflow Context [wf_context] table you can obtain a more complete information on the execution of workflow blocks. The context form reflects the start time (Started at), start initiator (Started by), related record of the workflow version (Workflow Version) and a reference to the target record (Related Record):

The context form also features the Workflow Executing Activity related list. The order of execution of the context activities is reflected in the Execution Order column:

Workflow Viewer

The workflow execution context can be viewed in the Workflow Viewer. To open a context in the Workflow Viewer, open the form of the record for which the context was created and click Show Workflow:

The following window appears:

The status of the workflow and its start and end date and time are displayed in the bottom right corner.

Use the mousewheel or zoom controls in the bottom right corner to navigate around the workflow.

Double-click a block or an exit to open a side-panel with their properties and info. 

Workflow Versions

Sometimes you may need to modify a workflow but leave the old versions accessible to complete business processes that already use this workflow. In such cases you need to create a new version of the workflow.

To create a new workflow version, complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Workflow → Workflow Versions.
2. Click New and fill in the fields.
3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.

Workflow version form fields

Create a workflow 

To create a workflow, complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to Workflow → Workflow Editor.
2. Click New.
3. Fill in the form fields and click Create.

A workflow is created and ready to configure. You can add activities, transitions, exits, define exit conditions, and so on.

To define additional workflow properties, complete the steps below.

1. In the burger menu, select Properties.
2. Fill in the fields.
3. Click Save to apply changes.
4. Add activities to configure the workflow process.

Workflow form fields

new SimpleWorkflow('159491114038814558').start(current); // workflowID