Workflow design considerations

In most cases, the workflow setup for standard file groups is straightforward and no special settings are needed. However, there are some alternative use cases that may require use of special settings.

Design considerations for on-demand file groups

You can use workflow with on-demand file groups. An on-demand file group is a file group that has been configured to allow users to create new plan files as needed (as opposed to "standard" file groups, where the list of plan files is predefined, such as departments for budgeting). For more information, see On-demand file groups.

When a new plan file is created for an on-demand file group, Axiom Software checks for any active workflows for the file group, and automatically activates the new file within each workflow.

To automate the workflow for on-demand files, the workflow must be set up as follows:

The first stage in the workflow must be an edit stage, and must be set up with a Default Assignment of File Creator.

This way, when a plan file is first created, the plan file creator will be automatically assigned as the stage owner, and will be able to edit and save the file. When they are finished with the file, they can submit it to the next stage.

If the plan file creator is not the owner, then the user will not be able to save their newly-created plan file (unless they have read/write security permissions to plan files).
All subsequent stages in the workflow must also have a default assignment.

You can assign specific users or roles as the default assignment, or you can point to a column in a reference table that contains the ownership assignments (for example, Project.RegionMgr would assign the associated regional manager as the owner).

When the plan file enters the stage, it is automatically assigned to the appropriate user.

Default assignments must be used with on-demand file groups, because otherwise when the plan files are created and activated in the workflow, the plan files would skip any stages without assignments. It is possible to define a default assignment for just the first stage and leave the others unassigned, but then you would have to manually update the workflow for the remaining stage assignments after each new plan file was created.

In most cases you will use relative due dates for each stage. For example, in the first stage, you could specify that each new plan file must be moved to the next stage within 5 days. Then, in the next stage, managers could have 7 days to approve or reject the plan file. However, you could use defined due dates for stages, if the cycle of creating and approving plan files is limited to a specific time period rather than an ongoing process. For example, users could have a month-long window to propose new projects, and then managers would have to review them and determine which are approved, by a specific due date.

Design considerations for form-enabled file groups

If the plan files in a file group are form-enabled, keep in mind the following:

By default, the form-enabled files will be opened as web forms from workflow features. The document link in workflow notification emails will open the form in the Web Client. Opening the plan file from the Workflow task pane will open the form as a web tab in the application.
If desired, you can use the Open form-enabled plan files as spreadsheets option at the stage level to force the plan file to be opened as a spreadsheet. This option only affects opening the file from the Workflow task pane.
If end users are working solely within the Web Client, then plan files must be set up with workflow buttons to enable users to complete workflow tasks from within the form environment. For more information, see Completing the current workflow task in Axiom forms. If users also have access to the Excel Client or the Windows Client, then they can use the Workflow task pane as normal to complete tasks.

Design considerations for "copy target" file groups

You can use workflow with standard file groups where plan files are created by copying them from another file group. This type of copy setup may be used to support file group versioning. For more information, see Copying plan files to other file groups.

Typically, special workflow settings are required for this type of file group. Both of these settings are located on the Workflow Properties tab of the workflow.

The workflow must be configured so that Automatically start child plan file workflows when the parent workflow is started is disabled.

Disabling this setting allows the copy plan files action to start the individual plan file workflows when a plan file is copied into the file group. This activation will only occur if the parent workflow is active and if the plan file is not already started in the workflow (so if the plan file is copied over again, it will retain its current workflow settings).

If this setting is not disabled, then the plan files will be started in the workflow when the workflow itself is activated. Since the plan files probably do not exist at this point, this would cause the plan files to stall in the workflow.
Optionally, you may need to use Specify alternate workflow start stage so that the workflow starts at a stage other than stage 1.

For example, you may be using the copy action to create a file group "branch" for periodic review and approval. Users can continue working in the original file group, while reviewers approve the copied files in the target file group. For the "copy target" file group, you would create a workflow where the first stage is an edit stage, and the second stage is a review stage. You would then set the start stage for that file group to stage 2.

In this example, this setup is necessary because the first stage of a workflow cannot be a review stage (because if there is no prior stage, where does a plan file go if it is rejected?). Now when the plan files are copied over and activated, they will start in the stage 2 review stage. If a plan file is rejected, it will move back to stage 1.