Business Optix Library Service Workflow.

Transcription

1 Business Optix Library Service Workflow

2 Library Service Workflow The Business Optix Library Service provides both standard and customerconfigurable workflows As standard, the service offers an Approval workflow, which takes a modified model version through Review and Approval cycles before publishing it to the Stakeholders folder for general distribution Because the Approval workflow is a Business Optix model, customers can tailor it using Author to suit their specific requirements Customers can also create their own workflows, and have them triggered either o By user request (when saving a model to the library), or o Automatically, whenever a file is moved into a specified folder

3 Starting the Approval workflow To send a model to the standard Approval workflow, you need only: Specify the Author and Owner, in the model s Model page Similarly specify the Reviewers and Approvers, in the Stakeholders area of the Model Explorer Select the stakeholder Type (Reviewers, then Approvers) 2. Click the [+] button to start adding a user 3. Select the user s name from the user list, or type in a name and address 4. Click OK to add the user to the list While working online, select Save As from the application menu Select Approval from the Send to Workflow dropdown, and click OK

4 Completing the Approval workflow Once started, the Approval workflow will: Generate HTML for review and approval Send an to the owner, author and reviewers with a link to the HTML Allow the reviewers to add comments to the HTML After a preset Review period, move on to the Approval stage (and the owner, author and approvers) Unless the workflow is cancelled, after a further period it will publish the model and all its documentation to the Stakeholders folder At any stage, the author can review the comments just by opening the original model

5 Cancelling an Approval workflow To cancel the workflow at any time: Open the Approval folder in the library s Workflow folder Open the sub-folder whose name is the current workflow step Delete the workflow.url file

6 Customizing the Approval workflow It is easy to customize the Approval workflow using Author: Open the Approval model in the library s Workflow folder Add, remove or edit steps in the diagram Save the workflow For each workflow step, you can specify: The name, next step, timeout (in days), whether to copy (as opposed to moving) the original model, and whether to clean up documentation after moving a model. Who to , and the content, when the step is started What documentation to produce Any server-side script to be run

7 Creating new workflows You can create new workflows too: Create a New Model and select Workflow Add and set the properties of each required step As well as the workflow steps used in Approval, you can use the Library Folder type... This adds a Location property: click the link symbol, then select any folder in the library......to have the workflow started automatically whenever a new model (or version of a model) is saved to that folder Use the File type to monitor models or comments Check the Check subfolders? box to include all subfolders of your selected location if left unchecked, only the folder itself will be monitored

8 Getting the most out of workflow Set up addresses for all your users in the My Settings administrative portal. The workflow service will then use these addresses and model authors do not need to specify them in each model. Customise messages for your organisation. s can be customised to include various details about the model and workflow. Use workflow to automate repetitive tasks, such as Sending out s whenever a new version of a model is published Notifications when new comments are added Automatically publishing models to the Stakeholders folder Ensuring a particular style is used when generating documentation in a single folder (if you wish to do this for your whole library, workflow is not required)