Intellect Platform Workflow

7/31/2019 Intellect Platform Workflow

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2008

Intellect Platform User Guide

9/24/2008

Intellect Platform: Workflow

IntellectPlatformModules

Templates

UserInterface

Security

WorkflowReports

BusinessLogic

API ToolSet


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2 Workflow | Intellect Platform Users Guide

Corporate Headquarters

Interneer, Inc. North

30851 Agoura Road

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Agoura Hills, CA 91301

Tel: (310) 348-9665

Fax: (310) 984-6820

Interneer, Inc. South

5901 Green Valley Circle

Suite 170

Culver City, CA 90230

Tel: (310) 348-9665

Fax: (310) 984-6820

www.interneer.com

Copyright 2008 Interneer, Inc (hereafter

Interneer).All rights reserved.

Company, brand and product names are, or

may be, the trademarks or registeredtrademarks of their respective holders. No

screen images or features described in this

document may be reproduced, transmitted,

transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or

translated into any language in any form by

any means without the written permission of

Interneer.

This document was published:

September 24, 2008

Version 1.0


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About This Guide

PurposeThe purpose of this guide is to provide an understanding of

how to configure workflows using the Intellect Platform.

Audience

This guide is intended for anyone who wants to understand the

features and functions of workflows as well as how to

configure them using the Intellect Platform.


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Table of Contents

About This Guide .................................................................................................................................... 3

PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................................... 3

AUDIENCE.............................................................................................................................................. 3

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction and Getting Started ............................................................................................................ 7

MANUAL ACTIVITY................................................................................................................................... 9

Properties General Tab ................................................................................................................. 9

Properties Advanced Tab ............................................................................................................ 11

MANUAL ACTIVITY EXAMPLE ................................................................................................................... 15

Default Owner ........................... .......................... .......................... ......................... ....................... 16

AUTOMATED ACTIVITY............................................................................................................................ 18

AUTOMATED ACTIVITY EXAMPLE .............................................................................................................. 20

DECISION............................................................................................................................................. 22

UNDERSTANDING BRANCHING.................................................................................................................. 24

UNDERSTANDING CONDITIONS................................................................................................................. 26

DECISION EXAMPLE................................................................................................................................ 27

SUB-WORKFLOW .................................................................................................................................. 29

Properties General Tab ............................................................................................................... 29

Properties Advanced Tab ............................................................................................................ 31

Properties Link tab ........................... ......................... ........................... ......................... .............. 32

SUB-WORKFLOW EXAMPLE ..................................................................................................................... 33

SPLIT/JOIN........................................................................................................................................... 34

Split............................................................................................................................................... 34


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Join ................................................ ......................... .......................... ........................... ................. 34

LINK ................................................................................................................................................... 36

Properties General Tab ............................................................................................................... 36

Properties Conditions Tab ........................ .......................... ......................... ........................... ..... 36

Next Step ...................................................................................................................................... 37

Pulling it Together ................................................................................................................................ 38

DATA,WORKFLOW AND ACTIVITY TABS ..................................................................................................... 39

How to Create a Workflow ................................................................................................................... 41

CREATING AND UPDATING WORKFLOW ITEMS............................................................................................. 41

Connecting Workflow Items .......................................................................................................... 41

ASSIGNING ACTIVITY OWNERS ................................................................................................................. 43

SETTING UP DURATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 44

Estimated Completion Date ........................ .......................... ......................... ........................... ..... 44

SETTING UP NOTIFICATIONS ..................................................................................................................... 45

How to Modify an Existing Workflow ................................................................................................... 46

WORKFLOW ACTIVITY STATUS WINDOW .................................................................................................... 47

Workflow Reports................................................................................................................................. 49

Work Break down Structure........................................................................................................... 49

History .......................................................................................................................................... 49

How to Access Workflow Activities....................................................................................................... 52

Generating Activity Tables .................................................................................................................... 53

Best Practices ........................................................................................................................................ 56

ROLE-BASED OWNERSHIP RATHER THAN USER-BASED:................................................................................. 56

ADDING INSTRUCTIONS TO THE ACTIVITY PAGES ........................................................................................... 57


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MINIMIZING AUTO NOTIFICATION............................................................................................................. 57

COMMON MISTAKES.............................................................................................................................. 58

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 59


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Introduction and Getting Started

This chapter provides an overview of the workflow capabilities

of the Intellect Platform. In this section, we will introduce all

the tools that are available to build 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 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. The remainder of this

section assumes that we are working

in the workflow tab.

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, mouseover 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.


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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.

To add a Manual Activity, simply left-click and

drag it on to the page from the toolbox. Once

on the workflow page, a double left-click opens

the properties page or right click and select

properties. Specific properties of the Manual

Activity are explained in greater detail below.

Properties General Tab

Label Use the label to name the

activity thus indicating its

purpose. Try to be descriptive

yet concise. The better your

labels are, the easier users

will understand the solution.

Description Use this field to give a more

detailed description of the

manual activity. This field is

displayed in the properties

page only, so it is more of a

guide for future configuration

changes.

Linked To Just like an input field, you

can link a manual activity to

another. For a review on

linking items, please refer toIntellect Platform User Guide

Interface document

Standard Properties for All

Input Fields section.


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Next

Steps

This is one of the ways to set

what the following step or

steps should be. Instead of

moving arrows around, you

can easily access the next

workflow activity in this area.


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Properties Advanced

Tab

Default Owner - The Default Owner is

the person responsible for completing

the activity moving the workflow to

the next activity. The default value of

the Default Owner of an activity is the

Workflow Initiator. If this value is not

desired, other options include

assigning a specific User from the

Users table, assigning a User from a

field on a page, or selecting a User

Group from the User Groups table.

Ownership can therefore be assigned

to one or more people at the same

time.

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. Unless the transfer

ownership option that appears upon

selecting a user group as default owner is checked off, the first

person to click in to the activity does not retain control. In any

case, once the activity is advanced, none of the group members

can make changes.

Accessible Just like in the input fields, you can set access

control privileges for workflow activities. To set up access

control for this workflow item, click on the Accessible To button.

When you click Accessible To, a new screen displays. From that

screen you select the various levels of control, such as read and


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write privileges, etc.

For more information on Access Control, please refer to the

Access Control section of the Intellect Platform User Guide.


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Estimated Completion Time sets the duration of the activity,

the primary goal of which is to notify users of delays and to

make visual changes to the workflows. If the activity has not

been completed within the estimated completion time, the

system automatically sets the status of the activity to Overdue.

The Estimated Completion Time is also used by the system to

set the Estimated Completion Date based upon the Estimated

Start Date and Completion Time.

These fields are accessible in the Activity Status window. Simply

click on the Activity Status button on the top

right corner of an activity page, and it will open at the bottom of

the screen.

Notification The Intellect Platform

has built-in automated email

notifications. By default these

notifications are turned off. Auto

notifications can be set to send when

any of the following conditions are

met;

The activity is initiated (status

set to In Progress), The estimated end date shifts

due to a previous delay in the

workflow,

The activity becomes overdue,

cancelled or on hold.

All 3 notification types are email

macros. To read more about the

email macro, please refer to the

Business Logic section of the Intellect

Platform User Guide.

From E-Mail- You can easily turn on

any of these notifications by setting

the External E-Mail question to Yes.


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For your convenience, the From E-Mail and the To E-Mail

fields are pre-populated, as is the subject line. You can change

these values and also place your own e-mail body into the

Message field.


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Manual Activity Example

Here is an example of a Manual Activity. This example

is from Interneers Expense Management solution,

showing the Manager Review step.

The basic premise of this workflow is that an employee

has incurred some reimbursable expenses, and they

wish to submit a request for that reimbursement to

their direct manager.

The manager in turn is able to view the request, including dates

and copies of receipts for example, and either approves the

request for processing by Finance, or rejects the request, with

or without asking for additional clarification.

The properties of this manual activity look as follows:


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Default Owner

Note the Default Owner area. In

this case, the Workflow Initiator is

the user who submitted theExpense Report.

In this step, we wanted the

manager of the workflow initiator

to be able to access the activity

and process it. In the template,

there is a field indicating the

manager of the user.

So in the Advanced Tab of the

manual activity, we used the User

from field option and selected the

Manager field in the data portion

of the template to set ownership.

Also, an Activity Assignment

Notification was set to notify the

manager that a new expense

report has been submitted and is waiting for approval. These

types of notifications are very handy in cases where users do

not log in to the system frequently.

The From, To, and Subject fields

were pre-filled, and we edited the


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Message field.


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Automated Activity

Typically this activity is used for behind the scenes calculations

and macro executions. Unlike the Manual Activity covered in

the last section, automated activities dont have a page users

interact with and no user input is

required. The property page only has a

General tab with a Label and a button

that opens the macro builder.

Label - Use the label to name the

activity and indicate the purpose of

the automated activity. Try to be

descriptive yet concise. The better

your labels are, the easier users will understand the purpose of

the activity.

Macro Create different macros using the Macro Builder. An

example is provided below.

For more information on Macros, please refer to the BusinessLogic section of the Intellect Platform User Guide.


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Automated Activity Example

Here is an example for the

automated activity. This activity is

automatically executed right after

the manager, as in the previous

example, clicks on Next Step after

approving the Expense Report. The

properties of this activity look as

follows:

In the Macro Builder you would

find the macro shown in the

figure.

This macro sets the date of the

managers approval, sets the Estimated

Reimbursement date based upon the

approval date, and does many other

necessary calculations.


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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.

As with any workflow item, the properties popup can be

accessed for the Decision item by right-clicking the item itself

and selecting Properties from the list. The Decision items

Properties window has only a General tab with two possible

choices: the Label for the Decision, which will appear on theworkflow page, and the Branches, which determine the

different directions the flow of work can take based on specified

criteria.


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Label - Use the label to name and indicate the purpose of the

decision. Try to be descriptive yet concise. The better your

labels are, the easier users will understand the application.

Note that each branch of the Decision will have a label as well.

It therefore often makes sense to have the Decision Label be a

question, and the branch labels to be the possible outcomes.

Again, a simple example would be Approved? as the label for

the Decision, and yes and no as the labels for the branches.


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Understanding Branching

BranchesOpening the Decision Branches area, you

can set different directions for the workflow to

follow. There are four columns to specify for each

branch. We will cover each in greater detail below.

You are not limited to 2 directions. Keep in mind

however that simplicity is always best. If at all

possible, it is always best to lean toward fewer

workflow items on the page in general to reduce a

cluttered look and to make the workflow diagram

easier to understand. You can insert additional branches by

clicking the Insert Decision Branch button.

You can also insert branches from

the workflow page. To do so,

insert a new link from the Toolbox

and connect the starting point to

one of the nodes on the Decision

box. You can insert as many such

links as you wish in this manner.

(Note: it is possible, and often

required, to have multiple links

eminating from a common node.)When you return to the properties

of the Decision item, you will see

that a new branch has been added

for each of the links you added to

the workflow page. You can then

update the conditions by which

each branch would be taken.

Use the Label to name the

workflow link (the actual line on

the workflow page) associated

with branch of the decision. Try to

be descriptive and make sure to

add a branch for all possible

outcomes. For instance, in our


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previous example, it wouldnt make sense to have an

approve/reject decision followed by only an Approved branch.

If the manager chose to reject the item, the workflow would

have nowhere to go, the submitter would not be notified, and

no additional action would be taken by the system.


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Understanding Conditions

Conditions are the core of the

branches, so to speak. They

define the logic by with the

system determines which

branch, or branches, to take.

Why do we say branches? This

is because each Condition for

each Branch is checked by the

system independently. The

system does NOT stop checking

conditions once one has been

met. In theory therefore, all

branches of a Decision box could

be activated at once. Although it is possible, it is not

recommended to do so. In such a case, a Split item (to be

covered later) would be more appropriate. Suffice it to say then

that each Condition is evaluated independently.

When you click on the Edit Condition button for a particular

branch, you are presented with another popup. This popup is

the same as you would see when setting a visibility condition for

example (please see the Visibility section in the Intellect

Platform User Interface Guide).

Once you have set your conditions, you simply need to tell the

system where to go next when the conditions are satisfied. The

Go To field is therefore a pointer to the next workflow item you

would like to be activated once your condition has been met.

To remove any branches, simply click on the Delete button of

the branch.


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Decision Example

Here is an example of the

Decision item.

This decision occurs right after

the manager, in the example

above clicks on Next Step after

having made her decision to

either approve or reject the

reimbursement request.

The properties of the Decision and the

branches look as follows:

Note that in this example, the manager either

approves the Expense Report or rejects it.

So there are two possible outcomes, meaning

two branches are needed. If the managers

decision is to approve, the user is notified along

with the finance department. If not, only the


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user is notified.


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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

users 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

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.


Label - Use the label to name and indicate the

purpose of the sub-workflow. Try to be

descriptive yet concise. The better your labels

are, the easier users will understand the

application. A sub-workflow often may serve

an independent purpose. It therefore makes

sense to use that purpose in the label. An

example might be Approval Process.


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Description Use this field to give a more detailed description

to this part of the workflow. This description only appears in

the properties page.


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Properties Advanced Tab

Default Owner You can set up the

owner of the sub workflow. By default

this person is the workflow initiator.You can also choose one particular

user or a user from a field, such as the

project manager.

Estimated Completion Time shows

the duration of the entire sub

workflow based on the duration of the

activities in the sub-workflow. If the

sub workflow has still not been

completed within the estimated

completion time, the system

automatically sets the status of the sub

workflow to Overdue.

Same Sub-Workflow For Each

Application (use) by default this is set

to yes meaning that for every instance

of this template, this sub workflow will

follow the same steps.

Selecting No for this property leaves

the sub-workflow blank to set it up in every instance separately.

This provides the added flexibility of having different workflows

for each instance.

For example, your approval process may change entirely based

on the characteristics of each project, and you may not be able

to define a process that includes every possibility.

In this case you can create a sub-workflow by setting same sub-

workflow for each application to no. Then the project manager

could define the approval sub-workflow of the project on a perproject basis.


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Properties Link tab

Just like the input fields, sub

workflows can also be linked to

other workflows. When youselect yes, further options

become accessible. Use this

feature when you want to nest

the workflow of another

template into this workflow.

Linking the sub-workflow to

another workflow is Advanced

Topic. For now just leave the

Linked option as No what isthe default value.


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Sub-Workflow Example

We used Interneers Expense Management application to show

you examples for manual and automated activities and also for

decisions. The workflow for the Expense Report looks as

follows:

As you can see, this workflow doesnt contain a lot of

activities, and no sub-workflow was necessary. However,

you may find cases with many more activities in a workflow.

It is often the case that these activities may be owned by

different departments. Under such circumstances, it is

highly recommended to group certain activities and place

them into sub-workflows. The concept is similar to, for

instance, grouping files under folders.


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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

briefly described in greater detail next.

Split

Split A split item allows one activity

or process step to kick off multiple

activities (process steps)

simultaneously. For example, thefirst 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 approvalseparately for example. In this

example, the split item is a simple way to direct the flow of

work in two (or more) directions.

Join

JoinTaking our previous example one step further, lets

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


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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.


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Link

Linking the different elements determine the order of the

activities.


Label - Use the label to name the

activity and indicate the purpose of

the link. Try to be descriptive yet

concise. The better your labels are,

the easier the users will understand

the purpose of the link.

Properties Conditions Tab

The property set on this tab varies based on the elements this

link connects in the workflow.

If the link is for connecting a decision

to another workflow item, the

Execute Link When property is

available. From this property, you

can set the condition when the link

gets executed. This is the same as

setting the properties of the decision

this link is originated from.

The Associated Button is Visible

property is available when the link is

connecting a manual activity to

another workflow item.


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Next Step

If there are multiple options for the owner to advance an

activity, the next step button on the activity page comes

with a drop down list where the user can choose the NextStep to follow.

Every option in the Next Step dropdown corresponds to a

workflow link

originated from this

activity.

Setting up a visibility

condition for the link

defines when the

corresponding drop down option appears in the next

step list.


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Data, Workflow and Activity Tabs

The DATA tab contains all the data entry fields,

working as a data repository for the template. This

area is the same as the template page before

turning the workflow on. You can think of the Data

section as the repository of every piece of data one

would ever want to capture for the purposes of a

particular template.

The WORKFLOW tab depicts the visual presentation

of the process flow drawn by the configuration

specialist. The purpose of this

workflow is to define the rules by

which users interact with different

pieces of data from the Data tab

the who, the what, and the when.

Each activity becomes a view into the

data.

As previously discussed, Manual

Activities (trapezoidal shapes) define

end user interactions to complete

certain parts of a process defined by

the workflow, and to move the

process forward by validating that

their portion of the process is

completed.

To view the contents of an activity,

double click on the activity and the

system will then open the activity

page in a third (ACTIVITY) tab. This

dynamic tab disappears when the

user navigates out of the activity.

An Activity tab provides a filtered view of the Data tab to focus

on the data elements important for the activity in question.

Activities can also include data fields that are not part of the

data tab, such as activity instructions.


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How to Create a Workflow

Creating and Updating Workflow Items

One unique aspect of the platform is that design and creation

(configuration) are seamless. While designing your workflow,

you can drag items from the toolbar into the workflow space. A

blank workflow tab has two elliptical shapes; these are the start

and finish points. These are not activities and simply represent

the starting and ending nodes of the

workflow. The Start should be linked to

only one item in order to properly start a

workflow. However, multiple items can be

linked to Finish. Among those many links to

Finish, whichever is executed first will end

the process. If you wish for multiple links to

be executed before a process is completed,

you can add a Join item before the Finish

and assign an and condition to its

properties.

When the cursor moves over a workflow

item, you see a blue frame surrounding it.

You can drag any item to move it by simply selecting it (left

click and hold) when you see the blue frame. You can also

delete an item or update its properties by right clicking on it

when you see the blue frame.

Connecting Workflow Items

The most common way to connect two items is to create

links by using hot spots on the workflow items themselves.

Each corner and middle point of the sides of toolbox items can

be used to create links. When you hover over these hot spots,

the cursor changes to a link icon. In such a case, you can createa link by left clicking with the mouse, and without releasing,

dragging the end of the link to another designated workflow

item. As you get closer to a workflow item, the link will snap to

it. You can still move the link as long as you dont release the

mouse button. To reselect a link, go to either the beginning or


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the end of the link as soon as you see the blue frame around the

item and then start dragging the item.


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Assigning Activity Owners

Manual activities are by default assigned to the

Workflow Initiator. This means, if not changed,

whoever inserts an instance of the template also

receives and sees the activities of that instance under

My Activities in the personal navigation area. Each

manual activity can be set up to be assigned to a user,

a role or a group. To update the default owner, go to

the activity and open the advanced tab in the

properties page.

If a User: is selected for the

default owner, for all the

instances of the process, theparticular activity will be

assigned to the selected user.

The activity can be assigned to

a role by selecting User from

field: Any dropdown that is

populated with users can be

selected for this purpose.

To give an example, you can

assign an activity in your projectto the project manager who is

determined by the Manager drop down in the Data

tab. This way, even though the role the activity is

assigned to remains the same, since different

projects will have different users in the manager

role, the owner of the activity will vary with each

new project.


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Setting up Durations

The duration of each manual activity can be

set from the advanced tab of its properties

page. The field name is Estimated

Completion Time and it 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.

Estimated

Completion Date

Estimated Completion

Date of an activity is

calculated by duration and

Estimated Start Date or Actual Start Date of the

activity, depending on its status.

If the activity has not been started, the Estimated Start

Date equals to estimated start date plus the duration.

However, if the activity is in progress the Estimated

completion date is calculated as Actual Start Date plus the

duration.

Note: Since the granularity of the duration is in days, the

Estimated Start Date of a successor is set to one day after the

Estimated Completion of its predecessor.


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Setting up Notifications

There are two locations to set up E-Mail notifications in

the workflow.

The first is in the automated activities. Mail Macro,

used with other macro functions, allows the

configuration specialist to set notifications under various

conditions.

To read more about the email macro, please refer to the

Business Logic section of the Intellect Platform User

Guide.

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 as demonstrated previously.

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

notification if and when the activity status turns to Overdue,

On Hold or Canceled.


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How to Modify an Existing Workflow

The most important thing to keep in mind while

updating an existing workflow is that instances

already created in the system will be affected

by this change.

If, for example, a new activity is added to the

workflow, this new activity will appear in

previously added instances and will appear with

a status of not processed. This may result in a

workflow view where there are activities

labeled as not started while their successors

and predecessors are all complete.

The same rules apply for automated activities,

sub-workflows and decision boxes.

Needless to say, although the system is highly

flexible, a great degree of care and planning must be employed.

Continuous changes should not be made on the fly, no matter

how simple. This is not a restriction of the system, but rather a

best practice to minimize issues with user adoption and others.


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Workflow 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 at 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 goes In Progress, the owner is

determined by the default owner set for the activity in its

properties. You can change this field manually to assign the

activity to another user by simply selecting another user in

this drop down. If the owner is set to someone other thanwho is defined by the default owner, the system will prompt a

message stating that the owner is no longer linked to the

default owner. This means the system will not take the default

owner settings into account in case the activity goes back to in

progress by a loop-back process. The

manually selected owner will remain as the

owner.

The owner field is a multi entry field and

supports the ability to assign an activity to auser group. However, an activity can be

assigned to multiple users only by setting the

default owner to a group. The system will not

allow users to assign an activity to multiple

users manually.

Status: The status of an activity drives its

colors in the workflow. The color coding

legend is located at the bottom left of the

workflow tab.

As of: This field shows the last change to the

status of the activity.

Estimated Start: This field is calculated based on the duration of

predecessor activities and the start date of the whole workflow.


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This field cannot be updated. The estimated start date is one

day after the estimated completion of the previous activity.

Estimated Completion: TheEstimated Completion date is

calculated by adding the duration to either actual start date or

estimated start date of the activity depending on the status. If

the activity is in Progress, the estimated and date is driven by

the actual start date; while if the activity has not started yet,

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.


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Workflow Reports

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.

Work Break down Structure

This option provides a tabular view of activities with status

information. Sub workflows can be expanded by clicking on

the plus sign to the left of the row.

History

TheHistory view keeps the log of changes

to the activity statuses. Each row in the

history view represents an update to anactivity and the values in the row shows

the final status of the updated activity.


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Tasks by Status: This is a view of all the activities in the

workflow grouped by the status field. The report opens

up on the personal navigation area and each activity

label serves as a short cut to access to the activity page.

Schedule: This is a Gantt-Chart view of the workflow.

The timeline shows start and end dates of the activities.

The bars on the time chart also serve as shortcuts to the

activity pages.

Turn Grid Off: This is a toggle switch to turn on and off the

grids on the workflow pane.

Microsoft Project: This is to export the workflow to an MSProject Document.


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How to Access Workflow Activities

Personal Navigation comes with a

bar, named My Activities that

shows all the Active activitiesassigned to the currently-logged-

in user. This includes In Progress,

On Hold and Overdue activities.

The default settings are set to

view the Activity Name as the

activity label under the My

Activities Tab. This can be changed

to instance name by changing the

sorting settings in the My

Activities derived table.

Navigate to Administrative

Tools>Screen Areas>Personal

Navigation to update this table.

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 fieldselected 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.


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Generating Activity Tables

Just like other reports, you can create activity reports by

querying the activities in the system. The query will have to

include a where history is no statement in order to get areport on the current activities.

Lets look at an example. You can create a report showing the

upcoming Expense report activities like the one below by

taking the following steps:

1. From the Toolbox, open the Table bar and select

Workflow Activity to start the Table Wizard.

2. Select Reporting Table as the Table Type

3. Select the From Query window to set the query

for the table.


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4. Set the Status to is not Completed, Cancelled or

Not Started, to see only the activities in Progress or

Overdue.

5. Set the History to No.


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Best Practices

Finally lets talk about some best practices, tips-n-tricks, and

common mistakes.

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.


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Adding Instructions to the activity pages

It is always good practice to have instructions for the end users

outlining the actions they need to take to complete their

activities. You can use a non-editable rich text field to provide

instructions on the activity pages.

Minimizing Auto Notification

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.


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Common Mistakes

Decision Boxes

One of the most common mistakes working with decision boxesis 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 doesnt know which

way to proceed; the process will stop moving forward with a

message stating that no condition has been met.

Owner of 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 on 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.


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Conclusion

Now you have a basic idea of some of the things you can do

with workflow. Need more ideas? Want help with

configuring workflows, sub-workflows or setting up emailnotifications? Let Interneers team of professionals assist

you. Dont hesitate to contact our Professional Services

team or our Customer Support department.

Intellect Platform Users Guide

The following documents are sections to the overall Intellect

Platform Users Guide.

Introduction to the

Intellect Platform

Provides an extensive overview to the

system, including an introduction to

each of the listed modules.

User Interface Describes the toolbars, menus, screens,

and personal navigation area.

Security Provides an understanding of access

control, including access control types,

use case scenarios, an introduction to

the hierarchical structure of the system

as well as a list of key points to keep in

mind when configuring access control.

Workflow Describes how to create real-time mapsof business processes.

Reports Provides instructions on creating pie

charts, bar charts, consolidated and

statistical tables within the Intellect

Call us: (310) 348-9665

Or Fax: (310) 984-6820


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Platform.

Business Logic Details how to use macros in the

Intellect Platform.

API Tool Set Describes how to integrate the Intellect

Platform with non-Intellect Platform

applications. Also included: Intellect

Platform Web Services.

Intellect Platform Workflow

Documents

Transcript of Intellect Platform Workflow