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’  flow palette contains all of the forms you have already created in the Forms tab of the application you are currently editing. These forms are available for you to add as steps of the flow. The palette also contains a new form which lets you create a new form step directly within the flow designer. Additional activity types for flow steps are Summary, http and Email. The purpose of each is described below.

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Previously completed activities in a workflow can be viewed by all users but editing data is only allowed for the user that initiated the flow. For example, if the Summary step is part of a screenflow performed by the same user, editing is allowed when this user clicks on the Details button. Once the flow navigates to a different user, previous steps are rendered read-only and cannot be edited. Refer to Flow Processing Modes for more information.

The Print button is available on Summary steps by default. Refer to Printing Flows for the details.

http Wait Notify

http Wait-Notify is a new type of activity that can be added to a flow. It is configured with a post url. The flow data is posted to this url when the task is executed. A call back url is included in the post. The flow and task are suspended until the receiver posts back.

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Info

offers the flow designer many ways to send emails from workflows. You can:

The Email in the flow designer palette is ONLY used to route a workflow to someone who does not have a  login(anoymous user). It does send an email to the anonymous user that contains a link to the step in the flow that the anonymous user performs. The anonymous user completes the step and then the workflow is routed back to a user who must login for the workflow to continue. Examples of  workflows that would have an an anonymous email step would be a request to an outside vendor for a quote, or a Purchase Order that is sent to the customer for approval. Refer to the Flow Tutorial for step by step instructions to implement this feature for a Purchase Order step instructions to implement this feature for a Purchase Order workflow.

  • Use of the Email activity requires that the ACL for "who can use the flow" is set to public. If you want to control who can use the flow, then set a role(s) on the first step of your workflow.

Many business scenarios require a step in the workflow to be performed by a person who is not an authenticated user - someone who is not logged into .  

The email activity allows the design of a flow where some steps are performed by authenticated users/roles and other steps are performed by an anonymous user. The anonymous user receives an email, clicks on a link in the email and accesses the task without being authenticated, performs the anonymous step, clicks continue, and the flow is routed back to an internal, authenticated user. The Email activity suspends the flow (saves the flow to the database), sends an email to the specified email address with a back link. The email recipient clicks the link and the flow renders even though he/she is not logged in.  

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and the flow renders even though he/she is not logged in.  

 A typical situation is an employee who submits a request to an outside vendor for a quote, which then needs to be approved by the employee's manager. The second step of the flow sends an email to the vendor, the flow is suspended until the vendor submits his quote, then the flow continues for the manager's approval. The Vendor Quote Workflow Tutorial consists of step by step instructions to completely build/test a workflow that uses the email activity.

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  • Email activities can be performed by an anonymous user.

  • The anonymous email activity will show up in the navigation bar for other users as usual; you can assign it a decorator but you cannot click on it.

  • The task will show up in the Audit Trail in the Waiting state when it is waiting for an anonymous recipient. You can search for it, do all the usual things.

  • Users can reject anonymous steps in a flow by clicking the Reject button but a subsequent user cannot reset a flow back to these steps. See the topic below for more information.

  • If navigation is used to go to previous activity, the EMail activity will be skipped. It would get recalled if you reset to a prior step and the flow continues thru it's normal flow. 

  • Configure a History Message on the activity before the Email activity if you want to see relevant information in the audit trail. The History Message can be templatized so you can see who the email address of the recipient.

Email Properties

When you drag/drop an Email activity into your flow and click on it, a Properties panel displays. The The Name,    Pending Message and Editing Activity Properties#PendingMsgPrecondition and Decorator properties work exactly like they do on other types of activities. Task Info and Precondition do  does not apply and if to an EMail activity. If you want to set up a History Message you  you must do so on the step in your flow that the anonymous user is going to see.   Note Note the envelope decorator to identify the Email activity in the flow. 

 Activity Doc Actions work exactly like they do on other types of activities. 

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When you click on the step in your flow that is seen by the anonymous user, a Properties pane displays. Several of these properties, do not apply to a task performed by a non-authenticated person and will have no effect. These properties are: Role List, Role, User, Task Info, CSS class, Precondition, Save Load, Save to Role, and Save to User and . You can customize the button label, history message and select a decorator for this task that will display on the Navigation toolbar.     

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The Task Notification Email  wizard also works exactly like it does on other types of activities except that the default message content is slightly different. It references {task.notify.url} which is the back link URL that the non-authenticated person clicks in the email to perform their step in the workflow. The designer can customize this message however, if you don't include the {task.notify.url} in your email content, the email recipient will never be able to access the task.

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Resetting a Flow with an Email Activity

 Consider a flow with the following navigation: Step 1 is performed by an Employee > Step 2 is an Email activity > Step 3 is performed by an Anonymous user > Step 4 is performed by a manager. 

  • Employee starts flow, email gets sent, the anonymous step is performed and a task is generated for manager.
  • A flow cannot be reset to the Email or Anonymous user step. In this example, only a reset to the employee step is allowed. 
  • The Employee performs the step again and clicks Continue. The Email activity is performed again and another email will go to the anonymous user.

 

 The same behavior applies to a flow with an http activity. 

Searching Tasks with an Email Activity

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