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 them is to use a workflow.
Users involved in workflows are alerted by email and can have a synthetic view of all their pending tasks on documents in their dashboard or on the Task tab. 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.
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. If a task is assigned to you but you won't be able to perform it, you can delegate the task or reassign it.