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When you click on any step in the flow,  a series of action icons displays depending on the step type. Creating a flow step by dragging/dropping an existing form or a New Form from the Palette shows these icons:

  • Image Modified - Cog icon - Click this icon to edit Step Properties. This icon is displayed when you select the flow step and in the Properties Navigator on the left side of the designer. 
    • Clicking the Image ModifiedEdit Step Properties icon on a flow step displays tabs to set up Settings, Assignment, Messages, Rejection, Precondition, Escalations, Emails, Web Hook, Quick Approval and Geo Location  as shown in the image above.
    • Clicking the Image ModifiedEdit Step Properties from the Properties Navigator or simply clicking on a section of the Properties Navigator brings you directly to the tab for immediate editing.
  • Image Modified - Chain link icon - Click this icon to create Linked Steps. Refer to Linked Steps in a Flow for a discussion of this Flow Design pattern and when you should use it.
  • Image Modified - Download Arrow over bar - Use this icon to download the step of the workflow as a standalone form. You may want to do this if you update the step in the flow designer and you want to keep your Forms and Flow libraries in sync.
  • Image Modified -  Pencil icon - Click this icon to make changes to a flow step. The form will open in the Forms Designer inside of the Flow Designer. Remember, the form in the Flow Designer is a copy and any form changes will not automatically sync up with the original form in your Forms library.
  • Image Modified - Minus icon - Use this icon to delete a step in a workflow. You will NOT be asked to confirm the deletion. Once clicked, the deletion is permanent.

If your step is a Summary, HTTP or Linked step, you will only see the Image ModifiedEdit Step Properties and Image Modified Delete icons.

Properties Navigator

When you click on a flow step, a Properties Navigator panel displays in the lower-left portion of the Flow Designer. This panel shows information about important properties setup for this flow step. Not all of the configured properties are shown in this view. Clicking inside a section or clicking on the Edit Step Properties icon in a section of the Properties Navigator immediately displays the property tab for editing.

The Properties Tabs work the same way whether you open them from the Navigator or from the flow step. Here is what you need to know:

  •  If you are working on several tabs at one time, you can navigate to other tabs and make changes there. Use the left and right arrows at the top of the screen to display additional tabs. You must click the Submit button when you are finished configuring Step Properties  to save your changes. Remember to save the workflow.
  • will validate the Property Settings when you click Submit. If a property value is invalid, the tab(s) will not close and a  message will display telling the designer that there are corrections to be made before saving. The screen will stay on the current tab if there is a validation error.  Otherwise, another invalid tab will be auto selected (starting from left to right) if another tab needs attention. Tab labels with invalid entries display in red.

    Image Modified
  • Clicking on the Cancel button closes the tab(s). You will be asked to confirm if any changes were made.
  • Hover over any field on the Properties tabs to see a helpful hint providing information about the property. Some fields contain instructions to guide you.
  • Clicking on the down arrow for a property shows an unfiltered list of choices applicable to that property. For some properties, you may see templatized controls from your flow and flow/special templates provided in .
  • In some cases, you can type ahead to narrow down the list. Use the up/down arrows, the Enter key or click an option with your mouse to select an option. Use the Backspace, Delete or click the x on a selected property to delete it.
  • Typing a opening curly brace into some fields, followed by the name of a control, show a list of the fields in your flow that match the entered text and will be added to the field as a control template.
  • On some tabs, you may have to slide the toggle to the right to turn on a feature.

Each step property setting is described below. 

Tip

Click the Help icon at the top of any tab for a quick tour of the features in that section. Currently tours are only available for Cloud customers.

Settings

Specify General Settings for a step in your flow on the Settings screen.

Name

This is the name of the form that you dragged from the flow designer palette and dropped into your flow. If you drag and drop a New Form from the palette, you can change this name to something meaningful. Form names longer than 60 characters will be truncated. The Flow Step name can also be edited from the Flow designer canvas by clicking the flow step then clicking the pencil icon above the Properties Navigator. Edit the name then click the checkmark to save or the cancel icon to discard your changes.

CSS Class

This CSS class name will be added to the XHTML markup generated for this step in the flow. Refer to the CSS class topic for details.

Continue Label

This is the label of the button that is displayed at the bottom of every step in the flow. The default label is Continue for all flow steps except the last step where it defaults to Finish. You can use templates to customize the label on different steps of the workflow. 

Save Label

The Save button label can be customized for each step in your workflow. For example, you can change the button text to Save for Later. This will help users understand what to do if they want to save a partially completed flow. To show the Save button on a flow step, the 1063682867 property must be checked on the entire flow and on the flow step.

Decorator

The designer can select a decorator for the steps in a flow by choosing an icon from the Decorator dropdown.  The selected decorator will replace the default number for the step of the flow on the Navigation toolbar. The image shows the navigation bar for a flow that does not have a decorator selected on the Employee Information step and then shows how the navigation bar looks when the pencil icon is selected for this step.

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titleClick here to see an image of the Navigation Bar with a Decorator selected

Printable

If this is unchecked, then this step will not appear in the printable PDF for the flow. This is commonly used when you add the same form to the flow multiple times or use the linked step feature to duplicate the same form for multiple steps. This is a common design pattern when the same form is passed among multiple people for approval (Approval Workflows). You will only be able to set printable on non-linked steps. The linked steps will not have the Printable property available in the designer. The setting for the non-linked step covers that step and all steps linked to it. The form for these step(s) will only be printed once in the pdf. It is no longer necessary to uncheck the printable property for all but one of the steps in this type of workflow . The designer can have fine grained control over which controls appear in the PDF by editing the step and setting the control's printable property.

Save/Load

If you check this checkbox on the flow level and on the step level, a Save button will be displayed for each step in your flow. If you don’t want users to be able to save partially completed flows and continue them later, uncheck the checkbox so users will not see this button.This feature is useful for flows containing lengthy forms where your users may not have all the information required to complete the form in a single session. By clicking on the Save button, a copy of the flow with all the current values is saved by Live Formsby frevvo. Live Forms will  frevvo will also generate an entry in the user's task list. Users access the saved flow task from the to continue working on it at a later time.

If you are not authenticated, clicking the Save button will display an authentication dialog that requires you to login. Users can save the flow as many times as they wish.

Saved flows can be monitored in the Submissions Repository. Saved flows can contain invalid data and can also contain required fields with no values yet entered. When such a flow is re-loaded the missing and invalid values are again flagged as such by Live Formsby frevvo. And the flow cannot be continued/finished until corrections are made to those fields.

This setting overrides the default Save/Load for the flow for this step only. If Save/Load is enabled for the flow as a whole, you can uncheck this property to disable it for specific steps. Click here for an explanation of how the Save/Load feature works.

Save to Role

When you click Save to save a partially completed flow, the saved flow will only appear on your own task list. If you check this box, then the saved flow is assigned to all users in the Role that is specified for the current step. For example, you may have an Issue Tracking workflow where an employee submits an Issue and the Issue can be acted upon by multiple users in the "Admin" role before it is resolved. The first step is filled in by any employee. When the employee clicks Continue, a task is generated for an "Admin" user. Any user with the "Admin" role can perform the task. The user can enter some data and click Save. The flow goes back into a pending state and is placed on the task list for any "Admin" user. A different "Admin" user can pick it up and continue working on the issue. In this manner, you can create a step in a flow that loops several times before continuing. Refer to the Looping between multiple users in a role topic for an example of a flow design pattern that uses Save to Role.

Save to User

When you click Save to save a partially completed flow, the saved flow will only appear on your own task list. If you check this box, then the saved flow is assigned to the user that is specified in the Users property. When you use this feature the User property should contain a template. For example, you may have form that needs to be reviewed and approved in an ad-hoc manner. In this manner, you can create a step in a flow that loops several times and that dynamically routes to different people before continuing. See the flow example Ad-hoc workflow: pass steps between arbitrary users for a deeper understanding of this feature.

Fast Finish

The Fast Finish feature is useful for workflows with many steps. If a user navigates to a previous step to change data, Fast Finish eliminates the need for the user to click the Continue button on the remaining steps of the flow to resubmit it with the changed data. Fast Finish can be selected at the flow level or at the step level. Refer to this feature announcement for more information.

Allow Signature Pad

Check this checkbox if the step in a flow will be using an external signature pad. Leave the property unchecked (default) on the steps that will not be using a signature pad.  See Topaz Electronic Signature Pads topic for the models supported and configuration information.

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  • You can enter any text you want for in the Subject and Message fields. Clicking on the DEFAULT button, shows "New Task" as the default subject and "You can access your task by clicking <a href="{task.perform.url}">this link</a>" for the default message.
  • Clicking on the down arrow, show a list of templatized fields from your flow, flow/special templates provided by and Task Templates that you can use in the body of your email.
    • Type the opening curly brace - {- followed by the control name to enter a field from your flow as a template. Selecting an option enters the control name into the field with the closing curly brace

    • Built-in flow templates

      • {flow.id} - The unique flow instance id. This id is unique for each flow submission.
      • {flow.type.id} - The unique id associated with a given flow. See Sharing Forms
      • {flow.extid} - Client defined extId passed in the formtype Url parameter.
      • {flow.name} - The name of the flow.
      • {flow.description} - Description of the flow. 
      • {flow.activity.id} - The Id of the current workflow step.
      • {flow.activity.name} - The name of the current workflow step
      • {flow.activity.reject.reason} - The reason a workflow step is rejected
    • Built-in special templates

      • {subject.id} - logged in user's username. 
      • {subject.roles} - A list of all the roles for the logged in user 
      • subject.email - logged in users's email address
      • {subject.first.name} - logged in users's First Name
      • {subject.last.name} - logged in users's Last Name

      • {subject.reports.to} - the user id of the person the logged in user Reports To - configured in the user profile by the Tenant Admin. Typically used to designate a manager/supervisor.

      • {tn.id} - the Tenant ID where a form/flow is located

      • {tn.name} - the Tenant Name where a form/flow is located

      • {user.id} - Owner of form/flow and user folder name in the filesystem 

      • {app.id} - The unique id associated with a given application. See Sharing Forms
      • {app.name} - The unique name associated with a given application.

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There are two built-in Live Forms frevvo templates that can be used to generate a link in the task notification email: {task.list.url} and {task.perform.url}.  To make any of these clickable links in your task notification emails, wrap them in an HTML <a> tag like this:

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Expand
titleClick here

Let's say you have a 3 step Expense Report workflow. Step 1 (the Expense Report) is filled in by the employee, Step 2 is performed by the employee's manager who approves or rejects the report and Step 3 is performed by an employee in the payroll department who processes the Expense Report for payment.

<< Employee submits Expense Report (Step 1) ==> the flow is routed to the employee's manager for approval (Step2) ==> once approved, the flow is routed to the payroll department for payment>>.

Step 2 in our example workflow is assigned to the employee's manager which is collected by a field in the form named ManagerName. When the employee submits the Expense Report, the designer wants the employee to see the message "Your request has been sent to {Manager name}". {ManagerName} is an example of a template that is replaced at runtime by the name that is entered in the ManagerName field in Step 1.

Step 3 in our example is assigned to any user that is assigned the role of Payroll. When the manager approves the report and clicks submit, the designer would like to display the message "The Expense Report has been sent to Payroll for processing" to the manager.

To understand where you type in the text for your messages to get them to display when you want them to, think of the Pending Message property as the message that is displayed when users try to access workflow steps. In our example, when the employee submits step 1, the flow moves to step 2, the manager approval step. The message typed into the Pending Msg field for Step 2 - "Your request has been sent to {Manager name}" is shown to the employee instead of the Step 2 form. When the manager approves the Expense Report and submits Step 2, the message typed into the Pending Msg field on Step 3 - "The Expense Report has been sent to Payroll for processing" is displayed to the manager when the flow moves to the Payroll department employees instead of the Step 3 form.

To set up the Pending messages discussed in our example, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Edit icon for your flow on the Flows Home Page.
  2. Click on the first workflow step to display the Properties Navigator panel.
    1. The Pending Message for Step 1 displays the default - "Your request is being processed"
    2. A Pending message set up on the first step of a flow is only displayed if there is an assignment on the first step of your workflow. This feature is useful for auto-starting flows programmatically. Do not assign a Pending Message for the first step if you are not using this feature.
      Image Modified

  3. Click on Step 2 of your flow - in our example this is the Manager Approval step.

    1. Click the Edit step Properties icon in the Messages section of the Properties Navigator.
    2. Type "Your request has been sent to {Manager name}", without the quotes into the Pending Msg field. The employee will see this message when he/she submits Step 1 and the task is placed on the Manager's Task List

  4. Click on Step 3 of your flow - in our example this is the Payroll step. 
    1. Click the Edit step Properties icon in the Messages section of the Properties Navigator.
    2. Type "The Expense Report has been sent to Payroll for processing." without the quotes into the Pending Msg field. The manager will see this message after clicking Submit on Step 2 and the workflow is routed to the Payroll department. Click Submit
  5.  If you want to display a custom message such as "Expense Report Processing is complete." after the Payroll user clicks the Finish button, click the  what does the user see icon? on the flow designer toolbar to display the Form Action wizards. Click on Display Message when users submit your form wizard. Type your message in the Message box. Click Finish.
  6. Save the flow.

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Steps performed by the same user in a flow are referred to as a screenflow. The steps of the screenflow are considered one task. The reject functionality will allow users to reject only to the beginning of that screenflow. You cannot reject back to steps after step 1 in the screenflow.

Tip
Steps performed by the same user that are separated by Anonymous Task steps are considered to be a separate workflow tasks. For example, consider a Purchase Order flow with the following navigation: Step 1 is performed by Sales employee > Step 2 is sent to the customer's Email Address (Anonymous user) > Step 3 is performed by the same Sales employee that performed Step 1. You can configure a Reject button on the Sales step that will show both steps as rejection targets even though Step 1 and 4 were performed by the same user. Refer to the Flow Tutorial for an example.

Customize the Rejection Email

It is possible to customize the subject and email message body that is sent when a workflow task is rejected. You will configure this email on the step you are rejecting from. The customized rejection email will be sent when the Reject button is clicked on that workflow step or Quick Approval screen.

You can choose controls from your form which will be added to the Message as templates or you can use built-in templates as described below. Click on theImage Modifieddown arrow shows the list.

  •  {flow.name} - Name of the workflow
  •  {subject.first.name} - First name of the user who rejected the task.

  •  {subject.last.name} - First name of the user who rejected the task.

  •  {flow.activity.name} - The step of the workflow that was being performed when the task was rejected.

  •  {flow.activity.reject.reason} - The reason for the rejection.

  •  {task.perform.url} - The URL to the rejected task.

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The "from" email for a rejection is the tenant "from" email. If no tenant "from" email is set, this will default to the admin user's email address.

Reject to Discard

Most often, steps in an Approval workflow can have three possible outcomes.They can be:

  • Approved
  • Sent back to a previous step for corrections/more information (Reject to Revise)
  • Rejected and terminated (Reject to Discard)

Consider a workflow where Step 1 is filled out by a user, the second Step requires approval by a manager and when approved, Step 3 of the workflow is routed to the VP for review. After approval by the VP, the workflow completes.

The designer must consider what actions the Manager and the VP could take when the workflow appears on their Task List.

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Troubleshooting the Reject Button

Here are some reasons why you might not see the Reject option on a step where "Reject From Here" is selected:

  1. If  the Reject To Here option is not selected in the previous steps, then user won't be able to see the Reject button on current step.
  2. When consecutive steps are executed by the same user,  treats it as a screenflow. Think of those steps in the screenflow as one task. The reject functionality allows users to reject only to the beginning of that screenflow/task i.e. where the previous user started his work. It won’t allow a reject to the in-between steps.
  3. If the immediate steps prior to the current step were performed by the same user, then he/she cannot reject to those steps (the user is rejecting the flow to himself). Users can reject only to those steps performed by other users, or to steps performed by himself that do not come immediately before the current step.
  4. If a previous step was skipped because its precondition failed, then the user won't be able to reject to such a step.
  5. If a precondition on previous step passed when that step was being performed, but the control values change causing the precondition to now fail, the user might not be able to reject to that step.
  6. The Reject button will not be displayed at all if the conditions are such that users cannot reject to any prior steps.

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Tip

In general, a condition is selected that acts as a trigger for the escalations. If the condition is NOT met, then the designer can specify what actions to take. You can elect to reassign, notify, send reminders or skip the task but you do not have to choose all three. However, once a condition is selected one of the actions must be reassign,notify or skip.

  1. You can skip a task when the deadline expires and the workflow automatically navigates to the next step. This is set up on the Action tab.
  2. You can reassign the task to another user/role. This is set up on the Action tab.
  3. You can send notifications to the user(s) that currently have the task that the deadline has been reached and the task has been reassigned. This is set up on the Notifications tab.
  4. You can use templatized values of controls in any of the Assignee(s) fields in the Escalation setup screen. The username that is filled in as that control's value will be picked up during escalation.
  5. You can send reminder emails to the user(s) who have the task on their task list at specified intervals reminding them that the deadline for the task is approaching. This is set up on the Reminders tab.

For example. if you wanted to send reminder emails to the user(s) who currently have the task on their Task List that the deadline is approaching and then send an email notification to them when the deadline is reached, you would configure the Notifications and Reminders tabs and check None (Notify Only) on the Action tab. Continue reading for more details.


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Escalations and Screenflows

Escalation should always be defined on the first step of a task - this is relevant when setting up Escalations for a Screenflow.

Screenflows are steps in a workflow that are performed by the same user. Consider a New Employee On-boarding workflow where steps 1 - 5 are designed to collect the Personal Information, W - 4 Allowances, State Allowances, Health Insurances preferences and Banking Information. Step 6 in the flow is routed to the new employee's manager and step 7 is routed to HR for final processing. Steps 6 and 7 are not part of the screenflow as they are performed by users other than the new employee.

Think of the 5 steps of the screenflow as one task. Escalation for the screenflow task will work as long as you define the escalation on the first step of the screenflow task. The escalation configured on the first step of the screenflow applies to all steps of the screenflow. For example, if a Complete Within 2 days escalation is configured on Step 1 of screenflow, then the escalation is triggered if the whole screenflow is not completed within 2 days.

Tip

If the first steps of a workflow consist of a screen flow, you must configure the flow to use the Save on Navigate and/or Task for First Step properties for escalation triggers to get created

Escalation Examples

Expand
titleClick here to see some Escalation Examples

Escalation Example 1

Let's consider a Time Sheet workflow consisting of 3 steps: 
  • The employee accesses the Time Sheet workflow, fills in the form, signs it and clicks Continue. Live Forms frevvo sends that employee's manager a notification via email
  • The manager clicks on the notification [on any device], views the Time Sheet approval request and approves it or sends it back for corrections.
  • If approved by the manager, the workflow is routed to employees in the payroll department for final processing. 

In this example, the designer has configured a 10 minute interval for the Manager to approve/reject the task. The Escalation tabs are shown


Employee William submits his Time Sheet at 12:55 PM. The deadline to complete this task is 1:05 PM. William's Manager Jerry receives a Task Notification email notifying him there is a task that requires his attention. The email includes a link he can use to access it.

Image Modified

In this example, the deadline to complete the task is 1:05 PM. Based on the setup of the Reminder(s) section shown above, Jerry will receive 3 reminders every 3 minutes as the deadline approaches. The emails contain a link that Jerry can click to get to the task. The first one arrives as 12:56 PM, the second at 12:59 PM and the final reminder before the deadline arrives at 1:02 PM.


At 1: 05 PM, the task is removed from Jerry's task list since it was not completed in the allotted time and is routed to the task list of any users with the role of Supervisor. Jerry receives an email informing him that the deadline for the task has expired and the task is now assigned to any user with the role of Supervisor.

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Reassigned users receive the Task Information email specified by the designer. So be sure to Setup the Task Notification Emails.

When Jack, a user with the role of Supervisor, access his task list he will see a task sent to him by the system and the Audit Trail shown in the image:

Image Modified

Escalation Example 2

Let's consider a situation where you might want to skip the task after the deadline has been reached. Imagine a workflow with a requirement that it must be approved by specific users in sequence. To prevent the chain of approvals from being delayed if one user does not perform their approval before the deadline, the designer can check the Skip the Task checkbox on the flow steps and  will automatically complete the current step and create a pending task on the Task List of the next user.

The Project Approval workflow shown in the image must be approved by Approver 1 and Approver 2 in that order. The escalation set up on the Approver 2 step automatically skips this step and advances the flow to the next next step . Notice that notification and reminder emails are also configured.

In this example,

  • The Approver 1 and Supervisor steps do not have Escalation configured.
  • The Approver 2 step has an escalation that specifies the step must be completed within 3 minutes. 
  • If Approver 2 does not complete the task within 3 minutes, the Approver 2 step is skipped and the flow advances to the Supervisor step.
  • Approver 2 receives an Notification email stating that the flow is now assigned to a Supervisor.
  • Approver 2  receives 1 Reminder email during the 3 minutes interval. 
    Image Modified
Here's what happens:   

  1. Project Details are submitted for approval. 
  2. Approver 1 receives a Task Notification email, clicks the link in it and performs step 1 of the workflow. The task is placed on Approver 2's task list.
  3. Approver 2 receives a Task Notification email which includes a link to the task. Approver 2 does not click the link in the email to perform the task.
  4. Approver 2 receives 1 reminder email. Approver 2 does not perform their approval within the 3 minutes.
  5. When the 3 minutes expires, the task is removed from Approver 2's Task List.  Approver 2 receives a customized email stating that the flow has moved to a Supervisor for approval.
  6. All users with the role of Supervisor receives a Task Notification email which includes a link to the task. 
  7. Someone in the Supervisor group approves/rejects the task.

Activity Document Actions

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