All the documents evolve according to a defined lifecycle. The default lifecycle is composed of the following states: Project, Approved and Obsolete. There are different ways to make documents evolve through this lifecycle. One of the ways is to use a workflow.
Users who are involved in workflows are alerted by email and can have a synthetic view of all their pending tasks on documents in their dashboard. The documents they have to review are listed there.
The Nuxeo Platform offers two default workflows that showcase the possibilities of the Workflow.
The default serial workflow, called "Serial document review", is an ordered workflow. This means that participants can review the document only when the previous participant in the list has approved the document. It can be used either to approve the document or simply to review it.
The default parallel workflow, called "Parallel document review", is an unordered workflow that enables to change the document's state after a consultation step. This means that participants can give their opinion on the document without having to wait for a previous participant to approve it.
Other workflows can be configured with Nuxeo Studio, which will then be available in the application.
Submitting a Task
A task represents what a workflow instance expects from a user or a group of users. Usually they are expected to give some information through a form and click on a button (like Accept, Reject, Confirm, Notify, Transform, etc.). A task usually has one or several assignees, a title, a directive and an expected date of achievement. The task assignees can be specified directly in the task definition or can be dynamically computed.
To submit a task, read the following documentation for serial workflow or parallel workflow.
Delegating a Task
When you know you might not be able to perform a task, you can delegate it to another user or group of users. Delegating means that they can do the task at your place, but you are not unassigned the task. As soon as you or a delegate reviews the document, the task is closed for you and all the delegatees. On the contrary, if you do the task before the delegatees, the task is considered done for everyone.
For more information about delegation, see Delegating a Task.
Reassigning a Task
If you feel that you should not be responsible for a task, you can reassign it. Reassigning a task means that you lose your rights on the task and on the document when you reassign your task on a document. The user you reassign the task to becomes responsible for the task and it is as if you never had to review the document.
For more information about reassignment, read Reassigning a Task.
Abandoning a Workflow
Abandoning a workflow means canceling it. When you abandon a workflow, the lifecycle state of the document does not change. The modifications made on the document during the workflow are kept.
Abandoning the workflow can be done at any time. Only the workflow initiator and administrators can abandon a workflow. He can also decide to cancel the workflow when he gets an update request from the first reviewer. When the first reviewer rejects the document, it goes back to the initiator, who should then either edit the document and resubmit it, or cancel the review.
To abandon a workflow, click on the Workflow tab of the document and then click on Abandon. The workflow is immediately canceled.
Notifications
Users who are involved in workflows are alerted by email and can have a synthetic view of all the tasks they have to do on documents in their dashboard. The documents they have to review are listed there.
Rights Modification on the Document
You can modify the permissions of a particular user or group on a document during an entire workflow or a particular task. This will bypass the permissions set on the workspace.
Implementation
Workflows can be adapted to any types of use cases like purchase requests, case management, invoices management. You can read the page Simple Workflow Example, and follow the creation of a workflow step by step with a specific use case.