Generating Manual Tasks

A visual workflow can create manual tasks to be completed by groups or individuals. A manual task is created based on a dedicated template, which records tasks in a specific folder. Tasks can be allocated to a group and a member of the group can then assign the task to her-/himself.

It is possible to visualize Manual Tasks only without creating an actual data card that follows up on the task itself. Uncheck then “Create task” flag, if you only want to visualize and document a manual task without creating a separate data card.

The workflow designer must define the name of the manual task, a short descriptive subject of the task and the condition of what needs to be changed to complete the task.

Manual Task configuration:

By default, a new data card will be created for each task during the execution of the workflow. Hence, the manual task configuration must define according to which template the data card shall be created. The visual workflow engine will suggest only those templates for workflow tasks, which include the mandatory system class Task Information.

It is also required to define into which folder the data card for the task shall be written. Remember that one template can create data cards into several different folders, for example for service groups in different locations.

The status of the task data card can also be set with the Manual Task activity. Typically, the manual task is set initially to either “Open” or “Assigned” but this configuration can be customized.

The manual task can be assigned to either a group of people, a dedicated person, or referenced person but not several at the same time. You can choose first a support group and then a dedicated person from that selected group.

It is recommended to create ready views for the workflow tasks in the Workspace of Efecte Service Management.

Creating Workflow Task templates

A manual task data card is created according to a corresponding template definition. The default configuration of Efecte Service Management includes at least one Workflow Task template. Additional Workflow Task templates can be created from scratch in any module. It is mandatory to add the system class Task Information to any new Workflow Task template otherwise the workflow will not recognize this template. Remember that the template needs to be linked to a folder before it is visible in the Manual Task configuration.

Workflow Task template:

Set Value Activities

One of the simplest activities in a workflow is to set a new value to any attribute of the corresponding template or a referenced attribute.

All workflow nodes must have a name. Workflow nodes can also have a longer description which explain what the particular node does and why.

While it is possible to update the value of an attribute within many other activities as a result of the activity such as approvals or conditions the Set Value Activity can be used to the same. It can be beneficial to use the Set Value Activity to update the value of an attribute in order to create more transparency of what happens when.

The workflow designer can set a new value for one or many attributes of the workflow.

Set Value configuration:

When setting values of attributes of the type multi-value, then the workflow designer can choose whether the value shall be set to the configured value, whether the value shall be added to the existing values, or whether the value shall be removed from the existing values.

It is also possible to add or remove values to attributes which allow multiple values.

Set Multi-value configuration:

If/Then Conditions

If/Then conditions branch the workflow sequence to two individual new branches based on a single condition or a combination of multiple conditions. If/Then conditions are ideal to model different process behaviors under different conditions. When the If/Then condition element becomes active the condition is immediately checked and a decision is made based on the current values in the database.

The name of the If/Then condition should be descriptive for the element.

If/Then condition with multiple conditions:

Based on the result of the condition evaluation the workflow branches into separate forks. Before the workflow continues on the different branches, the If/Then condition element can set new values to attributes of the template in order to automate processes. Different values can be set if the condition is met (Then) or when the condition is not met (Else).

Approvals

The Approvals activity enables communication with stakeholders of an issue. The purpose of the Approvals activity is to decide whether the issue processed by the workflow is approved or rejected. An approval or rejection can also be the result of a review of a change activity or knowledge base article.

Approvals can be done with Efecte Service Management or through Efecte Self-Service portal.

Group Approvals

The workflow engine can process approvals by both a single person as well by a group of persons. A group of persons can consist of dedicated persons that are recorded in the ESM organisation data or persons related to the template or a mix of both.

If group approval is used, then the approval decision can be of two kinds:

• Decide when first approver makes decision.
• Decide when all approvers have made a decision.

In either case, if one approver rejects the issue to be approved, then the entire group approval is stopped and the workflow continues according to the branch for rejected issues.

Approvals with Efecte Service Management

In case of approvals within Efecte Service Management, an approval notification will be sent to the approvers, which can follow an embedded link to get directly to the approval view of the related issue.

Approvals through ESM can be sent to:

• Dedicated, fixed approvers which are known to ESM.
• Related, dynamically selected approvers such as manager’s managers.

Approval configuration for approvals within ESM:

The link to the Approval template data card must be added manually to the body message of the Approval notification. It is the top item on the list of suggested attributes. The link and text used for the hyperlink can be customized in the workflow settings of the platform. The link of the message will be in HTML formal displayed by default as “Go to Approval”. This text can be modified in the platform settings/Workflow settings.

Approvals are by default stored into a folder of the Approvals template. Users can create views to review the approvals. The approvals with the time stamp are read only for normal users. Users with administration rights can change value of approval stamp manually. This will however create entry in the security log for audit purposes.

Configuring Approvals with ESM

The following configuration steps are already implemented in the baseline configuration for new ESM deployments. Upgrades or enhancements of existing installations must include the following steps, if approvals shall be enabled through the ESM UI.

A new dedicated Approval template must be created in the Organization module. You can import this template.

Approval template:

A new Approver role must be created in order to assign elevated user permissions for approving the related issue. The Approval role must have read and update permissions to the Approvals folder and Approval template.

The ReferredEntityViewer reference template must be set to the Person template. 

Setting reference for Approver template to Person template:

Assigning Read and Update rights to Approvals folder:

Assign an elevated user permission to the Approvals template in order to ensure that the correct user has permissions to make an approval decision (update Approval decision attribute).

Approvals template configuration with elevated user permissions:

ESM user attached to person data card:

Approvals Through Efecte’s Self-Service Portal

Service requests can also be approved through Efecte’s Self-Service Portal (ESS). The approval request will be send to the self-service portal for processing. The self-service portal will then verify whether there is currently an active delegate (substitute) for the approver and will send an email notification to the approver or its delegate.

The Visual Workflow Analyzer (VWA) supports sending approval requests to several Efecte Self-Service portals. You can set the Approval portal token and Approval portal URL per Approval node:

Group approval configuration for approvals within the Self-Service portal:

Visual Workflow Automation will create an approval stamp for the decision once it has been informed on the decision and continue the workflow according to the decision. Once the approver has made the decision then the self-service portal will communicate the result back to ESM including the name of the approver, which might be different from the requester approver due to the delegate function. ESM will then create an approval stamp for the decision and continue the workflow according to the decision. The message template for the approver notification is set in this case by the self-service portal.

When approvals are managed through ESS, then designers of workflows can choose to send approvals to a single person:

• Dedicated, fixed approvers which are known to ESM.
• Related, dynamically selected approvers such as manager’s managers or related cost center managers.

For approvals of service requests through ESS, the approval configuration of the service offering in ESS must be configured to “Set by Efecte Service Management”.

Approval configuration for approvals within ESS administration view:

Timers

Timers in the workflow engine create delays in order to synch with business processes. ESM supports two kinds of timers: one that holds the workflow for an absolute amount of time and another one that holds the workflow until a fixed, recurring point of time such as every Monday.

Timer node configuration with absolute waiting interval:

The workflow engine moves only forward to the next step once the timers is up.

Timer node configuration with fixed, recurring wake-up time:

The timer might also be configured in relation to any date attribute in the template.

Timer node configuration triggered 2 days before a selected attribute:

Wait-for Conditions

The Wait-for conditions capability enables to hold the workflow until one or many conditions have been met. The configuration of the condition equals the configuration for the If/Then condition. While the If/Then Condition node checks immediately whether a condition is met or not, the Wait-for Condition node waits until a condition is met and only moves forward then.

Wait-for Condition configuration:

Email Notifications

The email notification node enables the communication with all stakeholders while executing a workflow. Email notifications can be added at any place of the workflow. Workflow designers can define whether emails are sent in HTML format or in plain text format. It can also be configured when the workflow moves forward to the next node.

Email notification configuration:

The subject and the body message of the email can include dynamically added values of the template in order to make the message content contextually more relevant. Adding of dynamic content can be done by inserting the attribute’s code surrounded by a $ sign.

Administrators can check from the Maintenance tab in the message queue whether and when the emails are sent out.

Script Execution Node

It is possible run Python scripts during the workflow sequence as dedicated activity. The definition of the script follows the scripts which can already be programmed for single attributes as expressions in ESM. For more information on how to create expressions, please refer to the Attribute Handler Guide from the Admin UI.

Scripts in Visual Workflow Automation can manipulate values of the attributes of template the workflow is running on, but not values of any other templates. The script allows workflow designers to do mathematical computations using operands such as +, -, / and * as well as brackets. Scripts can also generate random numbers, calculate the difference between two dates/times, or compute sums or averages of multiple values.

Script node calculating a random lottery number:

It is of outmost importance to define the “move-on” condition for the Script Execution node which configures when the workflow shall assume the script to have executed and move on. It is also good to make use of the workflow termination condition if the script shall cancel the workflow unexpectedly.

New Data Card Generation

The Visual Workflow Automation can create entirely new issues while processing one issue. This is commonly useful when issues are related or one issue needs to trigger another issue automatically. In Incident Management, it is for example typical to create a new change request or problem issue if the incident cannot be resolved easily.

New data card generation node creating new issue from Change template:

Another use case is to create review cycles for assets such as enterprise applications or contracts. Once a workflow of a review has been completed, the solution waits for 6 months to trigger the creation of another review issue which again kicks off the workflow for the next review. Fields of the new issue can easily be set to a new value through configuration or can be mapped to values of the issue that is triggering the creation of the new issue.

Rollback

The rollback capability allows workflow designers to jump back to a previous activity in the workflow sequence if a specific condition is met. The rollback functionality resets many of the activities to their initial condition that are between the rollback node and the activity to which the workflow jumps back: 

• Previous approvals are cancelled and a new approval request is created.
• Timers are reset.
• Manual Tasks are set back to undone.

Rollback node configuration for simple incident workflow:

Rollback cannot reset or make undone activities from nodes such as:

• Orchestration activities.
• Email notifications.
• New Data-card Creation node.

These activities should not be in the workflow sequence of the rollback path.

The rollback must point always to a sequence of the workflow that has been executed already before the rollback, i.e. it is not allowed to jump to another branch of an If/Then condition.

To avoid the creation of loops which may cause severe performance issues of the system, the workflow sequence between the rollback node and the re-starting activity must include a delaying activity such as:

• Timer.
• Approval.
• Wait condition.
• Manual task (if node is not marked instantly as done when rolled back).

The rollback node includes a parameter for defining the number of rollbacks that are allowed for a single issue. The workflow designer can adjust the value from 1 to 20. Once all allowed iteration rounds are executed, then the workflow will continue at the rollback node even if rollback conditions are met. If still workflow moves to a rollback node, which has been already executed too often then the workflow will terminate with an error.

End Node Configuration

End nodes are the final step in every workflow sequence. A workflow must have at least one end node. A workflow can also have several end nodes to specify different outcomes of the workflow.

End node configuration:

Every end node has a name that should be specified to describe the outcome of the workflow. The status of the issue should be also set to value corresponding to the outcome. Optionally, it is possible to set automatically any attribute value of the template to reflect the final state of the workflow.