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This guide takes you through step by step instructions to create a Leave Approval Workflow. This tutorial uses the form you created in the Getting Started with Forms tutorial.
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We strongly recommend that you jump directly to the Workflow Tutorial if you are already comfortable using the Workflow Designer. The Workflow Tutorial teaches you important workflow design patterns and increases your skills using the many workflow designer features. |
A common example of a workflow is a Leave Approval workflow, where an employee requests vacation and the manager must either approve it, reject it or send it back to the employee for corrections. Typically, the process is paper or email-based. The employee fills out a paper form and hands it to the manager for a signature. The form is then faxed or delivered to HR where it is saved in a folder or scanned into the HR or document management system.
Using Live Forms, you can automate this workflow so that it is completely electronic and paperless. Further, you can integrate the workflow with Google Apps, a document management system such as Digitech ImageSilo/PVE, your database or custom business system so that the leave approvals are stored online.
The steps for the Leave Approval workflow are as shown in the figure:
- The employee goes to a web page that embeds the workflow. Live Forms makes this very easy to do.
- The form is configured so that the employee only sees the relevant portion of the form, i.e. the employee does not see the Manager Approval section or the HR Review section. The employee information and manager ID are automatically populated by .
- The employee fills in the form, digitally signs it and clicks a Submit Request button.
- puts the leave approval request on the specific manager's task list, [optionally] notifies the Manager by email and displays a confirmation message to the employee.
- The manager logs in
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- and visits a web page that displays an electronic task list. All pending leave approval requests will be displayed in the task list.
- The manager clicks to perform an approval. The Manager-specific portions of the form are now visible. The data entered by the employee is automatically populated for the manager to review.
- If the manager requires corrections, the form can be sent back to the employee to make changes.
- Once approved, the manager digitally signs the form and clicks Submit Request.
- In the final step, the workflow is sent to the HR department to update records and/or make comments.
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Live Forms In-house Only
If you are using Live Forms In-house software installed locally on your own machine, then the 1st step is to login as the admin user and create your 1st tenant. Follow the steps below:
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A great way to test your workflow is to use a space. A space is a frevvo website that is very easy to create. Your deployed forms/workflows are automatically added. Follow these steps to create the space:
- Ensure the visibility of your Expense Report workflow is set to public in tenant and that it is deployed to production:
- In Workflow Properties, select the Access Control Tab. Set "Who can start the workflow" to "Anyone (login not required.)
- On the Forms & Workflows Homepage, click the
Action menu for the Leave Approval Workflow. Select
- In Workflow Properties, select the Access Control Tab. Set "Who can start the workflow" to "Anyone (login not required.)
- Click on the Spaces Tab. Click the
- Click the
- Copy the share url for your space then logoff .
- Paste the space url into another browser or a new tab of the browser you are using. Login as tom@<your tenant name>. automatically makes your project a tab on the space menu and your Leave Approval Workflow an option on the menu under the tab. Your space should look something like this:
Click on the tab for your project and then click on the Leave Approval workflow. This brings you to the first step in your workflow. The workflow automatically has a navigation bar to indicate which step you are currently in as well as the next steps that are coming.
Fill in the fields in the 1st step, remember to sign and click the Send to Manager button to route the workflow to the Manager for approval.
Tom should see the customized pending message that you set up on the manager activity in the workflow.
- Logout of your space then login to the space as the manager jerry - jerry@<your tenant>.
- Click on the Important Items tab, then click the Task List. Jerry will see the pending Leave Approval request from Tom. Note the Task information that we set up on step 2 of the workflow using the template - Leave Approval for {EmployeeName}
- Click the
- The manager name and email fields are populated by our business rule.
- Add a comment and sign the section.
- Click the customized Send to HR button. The pending message that you set up on the HR step of the workflow displays.
- Logout of your space and login as sue@<your tenant>.
- Click on the Important Items tab and then on the Task List. The pending task for the HR department displays. Note Sue, the HR employee, sees the Employee Information section, the Manager Approval section and the HR section.
- Click the Finish button to complete the workflow. The workflow's configured form action message displays.
Logout of your space.
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- Read the general documentation on designing workflows for a detailed discussion of workflows and their features
- Like forms, a workflow has three accessibility states. See making forms/workflows public for more details.
- Like forms, a workflows's doc and form actions are configurable. Go back into the frevvo workflow designer for one of your workflows to use the Form Action and Doc Action buttons. See submitting your form for more details.
Workflows can be custom styled to fit the look & feel of your existing web site. See Layouts and Styles.
Refer to Workflow Design Patterns for a discussion of useful design patterns for workflows.
See the Business Rules chapter for the details and examples of how to add behaviors to your forms/workflows using the Visual Rule Builder.
- Make your forms/workflows more interactive by using templates.
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