The recently released Laserfiche Workflow 8.0.1 includes a number of new and updated activities that extend the software’s functionality, making it even more powerful and flexible. One of the new activities is End Workflow, which ends one or more workflows and allows you to specify both the termination status and reason.

Note: The End Workflow activity builds on the functionality of the Terminate Workflow activity. Both can be used to end workflows, but Terminate Workflow can only end the current workflow and the status will always be listed as Terminated. As a best practice, we recommend using End Workflow, but for existing workflows, as well as instances where you don’t need anything other than the workflow stopped with a status of Terminated, you can still use Terminate Workflow.

Real-World Scenario: The Problem

The Smith Corporation needs to automate the approval process for employee expense reports.

• For reports equal to or less than $1,000, Workflow should route the document through an approval process that includes various people in human resources.
• For reports over $1,000, Workflow should still route the document through the HR approval process, but it should also route the document through various people in accounting.
• If accounting rejects a report, both approval processes should end.

The Solution

As a best practice, the company should isolate the two approval processes into separate workflows (HR Workflow and Accounting Workflow), as this will make them easier to maintain and reuse.

• If a report is greater than $1,000, the HR Workflow should invoke the Accounting Workflow.Note: When a workflow invokes another workflow, the first workflow is referred to as the parent.
• If accounting rejects a report, the Accounting Workflow should use the End Workflow activity to end both itself and its parent workflow.

Configuring End Workflow for This Scenario

1. Add End Workflow to the Accounting Workflow. Ensure the activity will only run if one or more users in the accounting department reject the document.
2. In the activity’s Properties Pane, specify that End Workflow should end both the current workflow and the parent.

   

3. For workflows ended by this activity, specify what the status should be. This is the status that will be listed when a user searches for a workflow.

   

4. For workflows ended by this activity, specify what the reason should be. Just like status, this information will be listed when a user searches for a workflow.

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Tags: Workflow

Posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 9:49 am under Support. You can comment on this post.