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This guide takes you through extremely detailed step by step instructions to create a Leave Approval workflow. This uses the form you created in the Getting Started with Forms tutorial.

Tip

We strongly recommend that you jump directly to the Flow Tutorial if you are already comfortable using the flow designer. The flow tutorial assumes that you have some basic understanding of the flow designer. The Flow Tutorial teaches you important flow design patterns and increases your skills using the many flow 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:

  1. The Employee goes to a web page that embeds the workflow. Live Forms makes this very easy to do.
  2. 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 .
  3. The Employee fills in the form, digitally signs it and clicks a Submit Request button.
  4.  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.
  5. The Manager logs in, and visits a web page that displays an electronic task list.
  6. All pending leave approval requests will be displayed in the task list.
  7. 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.
  8. If the Manager requires corrections, the form can be sent back to the Employee to make changes.
  9. Once approved, the manager digitally signs the form and clicks Submit Request.
  10. In the final step, the workflow is sent to the HR department to update records and/or comments.
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  1. Login as the tenant admin user. An example of the tenant admin user id is: admin@mycompany. 

  2. Each tenant has it's own admin user that has permission to create new users, roles and perform other management functions for the tenant. For Live Forms In-house software users it is important to note the distinction between the frevvo admin user and the tenant admin user. Next we need to create a few users and roles in this tenant that we'll use in our Leave Approval workflow

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Setup users and roles

Warning

This is a one-time setup that will have to be performed by an administrator.

We will need to create three roles for the Leave Approval workflow:

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Creating the Leave Approval Workflow

  1. Logon to your  tenant as the designer. 

  2. Click the Edit icon for the My Company HR application. 



  3. Click the Flows tab. 



  4. Click the New  icon to create a new flow. Change the name of the flow to Leave Approval Workflow. Check the Save PDF checkbox so that a pdf image of the flow is saved in the  submission repository.



  5. If you completed the Getting Started with Forms exercise, you should have a Leave Approval Form listed in the palette.

     Drag

     Drag and drop the Leave Approval form you just created into the flow. This creates the first step (activity) in the workflow.

     Name

     Name the activity 'Employee' by typing the name in the Name property. 

    Image Modified

  6. In our example, we will use the same form three times, once for the Employee, Manager and HR.  Select the Employee activity and click the Image Modified icon icon twice. This will create two linked activities. A linked activity refers to the same form as the original activity. The form cannot be edited from the linked activity but any edits made to the original form are reflected in the linked activity. 



  7. Name the second activity Manager and the third activity HR. 

Setup the steps in your workflow

  1. Click on the Employee step. Leave the role dropdown blank so anyone that logs into the tenant can perform step 1.
  2. Change the text of the Submit Button label by typing it in the Continue Label field. Ex: Send to Manager 

      

  3. Assign the role of Manager to the second step. 

  4. Add a customized message in the Pending Message field. Tom will see this message when he clicks the Send to Manager button. Ex: Your request has been forwarded to your manager for approval.

  5. Add some text in the Task Info field so manager Jerry can identify the task when he sees it on the Task List. You can use a template in the message. A template is a control in your form encased in curly brackets.

     

     will resolve the template at runtime and replace the field in the Task Info with the data that is entered into it. If you want to use the workflow for more than one employee, enter Leave Approval for {EmployeeName} in the Task Info field so the approving manager will know who the request is for when it appears on their task list. 

  6. Change the Continue Label to Send to HR. Manager Jerry will click on this button to send the workflow to the HR department.

     
  7. For the third activity, set the role to HR. 
  8. Enter "Leave Approval for {EmployeelName}" in the Task Info field.
  9. Enter a Pending Message that Jerry will see when he clicks the Send to HR button. Ex: The Leave Approval for {EmployeeName} has been forwarded to HR. 



  10. You can customize the message the HR user will see when the workflow is completed. 
  11. Click on the  Form Action icon in the tool bar. 
  12. Click on the Display Message wizard.
  13. Enter your customized message 

  14. Click the  save and exit icon to save the work your have done so far.

      

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Control LabelControl NameDescription
Employee NameEmployeeNamethe current user's full name
Employee IdEmployeeIdthe login id of the current user
Manager IdManagerIdthe login id of the current user's manager
Employee EmailEmployeeEmailthe current user's email address

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Add the Manager Approval Section

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 A  great way to test your flow 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:

  1. Ensure the visibility of your Expense Report flow is set to public in tenant and that it is deployed to production: 

    Image Modified


  2. Click on the Spaces Tab. Click the Image Modified icon. Enter an id and name for your space. Click Create. 
     
  3. Click the Image Modified Edit Edit icon on the Space Home page.

    Image Modified 
     
  4. Click the Image Modifiedicon to hide the left panel.

    Image Modified
     
  5. Click the  save and exit icon to save the changes to your space.

     
  6. Click the Image Modified Share icon. Copy the share url for your space then logoff . 

    Image Modified
     
  7. 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 application 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:

     Image Modified


  8. Click on the tab for your application and then click on the Leave Approval workflow. This brings you to the first step in your flow. The workflow automatically has a navigation bar to indicate which step you are currently in as well as the next steps that are coming. 
  9. Fill in the fields in the 1st step, remember to sign and click the Send to Manager button to route the workflow to the next step - manager approval. 


     


  10. Tom should see the customized pending message that you set up on the manager activity in the workflow. 



  11. Logout of your space then login to the space as the manager jerry - jerry@<your tenant>.
  12. 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 flow using the template - Leave Approval for {EmployeeName} 

     
  13. Click the Perform icon to display the task. Notice Manager Jerry sees the Employee Information section filled in by Tom and the Manager Approval section so he can approve or reject the request.
  14. The manager name and email fields are populated by our business rule. 
  15. Add a comment and sign the section.

     

  16. Click the customized Send to HR button. The pending message that you set up on the HR step of the workflow displays.



  17. Logout of your space and login as sue@<your tenant>.
  18. 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. 



  19. Click the Finish button to complete the workflow. The flow's configured form action message displays. 

     


  20. Logout of your  space. 

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