This guide concerns designing, using, and monitoring STEP Workflows in the STEP Workbench. Workflows are managed within the workbench, though end users can access them via both workbench and Web UI. For information on configuring and working with workflows in Web UI, refer to the Workflows in Web UI section of the Web User Interfaces documentation
Workflows may be considered as a view or representation of real work within a company, allowing businesses to manage and streamline the flow of tasks among varying groups, users, and system activities. A workflow definition consists of a number of states that an object or task can be in at a given time, the legal transitions between these states, and the events via which the transitions can be triggered. The flow being described may refer to an asset, service, person, product, or other element that is being transferred from one state to another. For example, introduction of a new product may involve work from a variety of business groups, such as Product Management, Marketing, Creative, and Legal. Each group needs to interact with the product in some way, and likely have differing sets of data required for this interaction. Some groups may not be able to do their work until another group has completed theirs, while other groups may be able to act on the product in parallel.
The same principles apply for any other data types and any type of data maintenance. Regardless of the type of data or process being handled, an object in a state represents a task that requires work. For instance, a user could be required to populate a set of attributes, and when completed, manually trigger a transition from one state to the next. Alternatively, an object could be in a state waiting for data from an external system, waiting for a background process to complete, or waiting for a specific event elsewhere in the workflow or in STEP in general, and thus not require any direct human interaction.
STEP Workflows are data-centric workflows, meaning that a workflow instance is defined as the relation between a workflow definition and an object in the STEP database. An object can be in multiple workflows simultaneously, and each instance will have no impact on the others (unless the workflow definitions include business rules to create a relationship between various workflows).
On top of the basic STEP Workflow functionality, a number of additional features are available that make workflows powerful tools for streamlining processes and ensuring data quality. These include, but are not limited to, options to:
- Configure business rules to validate data, assign tasks, move tasks through workflows, integrate workflows with other processes such as imports and exports, and more
- Configure data views specific for each workflow state, allowing each actor in the flow to focus only on the data most relevant for their tasks
- Support both static and dynamic task assignment and ownership, ensuring that the right actor accesses the right task at the right time
- Design for sequential and parallel execution of tasks, streamlining work processes for maximum efficiency
- Set deadlines and escalation actions, ensuring that tasks are completed in a timely manner
- Configure dashboards for snapshot monitoring and KPI reporting, allowing administrators to quickly view and assess key data points across the entire workflow
The supported workflow enabled object types are:
- Assets
- Attributes
- Classifications
- Entities
- Lists of Values (LOVs)
- Planned pages
- Products
- Publications
- Publication sections
While workflows can become quite complex, the basics are really simple, and it is possible to get a small functional workflow up and running in a matter of minutes. This guide will begin with the basic material and work up to more advanced topics.
Note: A workflow definition can be exported as comments and submitted to an external source control system for comparison purposes. For details, refer to the Configuration Management documentation here.