Category / Section
Workflow Activity Basics
Published:
1 min read
The editors used for workflow activities all have the same "skeleton" which makes it easy to learn and use. In this section, we'll discuss the basic Activity Editor layout and components, the purpose of each and how they work. The image below marks all the different section of the Activity Editor which we'll discuss in more detail underneath.
Title bar (yellow)
The title bar consists of the name of the activity being edited or "*New" if a new activity is being created.
Towards the right, there is a Support button. Clicking the button will reveal two menu items:
- Save Support Package
- If you're having trouble with a specific activity, you can save a Support Package and email it to support@peopleres.co.za and we can investigate it from our side with the information provided.
- Online Help
- If a Knowledge Base article is available for the type of activity you're creating / editing, it will open it in a browser.
Ribbon bar (maroon)
The ribbon bar consists of various important buttons and fields, some of which are required to set in order for the activity to function correctly within a workflow.
Information
| Overview | Clicking the Overview dropdown button will display information about the activity that is being edited. It will display the Activity Type, Activity Name and the name of the Workflow Template to which the activity belongs. |
| Change Log | Displays information about the creation of the activity, who last saved it and when and an option to view the full change log. |
Owner / Responsible Group
This dropdown button allows you to specify which Recipient Group will be responsible for managing and completing the activity in the workflow. This is important because it determines who can start and complete the activity.
Next Activities
All activities can complete in one of two states: "Signed Off / Completed / Success" and "Failed / Skipped / Rejected". The final state of the activity determines which activity the workflow should move to next. The next activity for each state should be specified here. If the next activity for a state is not specified and the activity reaches that state, the workflow will stall.
Tasks
Contains the actions for Saving and Closing the Activity Editor.
Previous Activity
When creating a new activity, next to the Home tab on the Ribbon bar an additional tab will appear called "Previous Activity". If you opened the Activity Editor by clicking the New toolbar button on the Workflow Designer without having an existing activity selected, you should specify from which previous activity the new activity will flow and whether it will flow from the "success" or "failed" state.
Tabs (green)
The tabs contain different pages of data and settings related to the activity. Each type of activity will have different tabs based on the function of the activity and what information is required to get it working. Some of the commonly displayed tabs are:
| Activity Information | Contains basic fields related to the activity. This consists of both Core fields (common to all types of activities) and Activity-specific fields that changes with each type of activity. |
| Participants | For some activities, it is possible to define a specific list of participants that will be involved in the activity as well as the type of participants. |
| Options | Contains general options, mostly regarding dates of when activities should be started by, by when it must end and if or when they must be locked. |
| Change Log | Displays the history of who made changes to the activity and when. |
| Other tabs | Different activities can have a number of additional custom tabs used for linking and setting up templates related to the activity. |
Activity Information tab
Core Details (purple)
| Activity Name | Specify a name for the activity to identify it within the workflow. |
| Code | Optional. Specify a code if you want to be able to export fields from the activity or use the activity within a Generate Document activity. |
| Active | Indicate if the activity is active or deleted. Before making an activity inactive, be sure to remove it from the workflow process to prevent the workflow from stalling and going into broken state when reaching the inactive activity. |
| Description | Optional. A more detailed description on the purpose of the activity. For now, it is only used internally as information / documentation for administrators and not displayed to the end-user. |
Activity-Specific Details (blue)
Each type of activity will have their own custom fields and parameters that will be displayed here. The example screen print above shows the fields for the Sign Off activity.
Status bar (orange)
The status bar provides a quick view of the state of the activity editor. From left to right, the following information is displayed:
- Editor State and Activity Type - "New" or "Edit" and the type of activity.
- Creation Timestamp - Moving mouse cursor over label will also show which user created the activity
- Last Updated Timestamp - Moving mouse cursor over label will also show which user last saved the activity
- Version number - Shows the current HR Manage version number.
- Instance - Shows whether the HR Manage instance being used is Live, Q&A or Training.
