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See the workflow example topic determining the role at run-time.
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A role entered in the 'Role' input box overrides the one selected in 'Role list'. This is as designed. Steps configured to route to an individual user will override the selected roles. If you configure both User and Role/Role List for the same step, the step will be assigned to the configured user, and the roles will be ignored. |
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Refer to the workflow topic sending a workflow step to a specific user for an example.
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You may want to route a step in a workflow to the user's manager. provides a built-in template that is available for every transaction. Simply type the template {subject.reports.to} in the User property for that step in your flow. The workflow will then be routed to the user who is specified in the Reports To field on the User's configuration screen |
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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:
- Click the
icon for your flow on the Flows Home Page.
- Click on the first workflow step to display the Properties panel.
A Pending message set up on the first step of a flow is only displayed if the Task for First Step feature is configured for 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.
Click on the Step 2 of your flow - in our example this is the Manager Approval step.
Type "Your request has been sent to {Manager name}, without the quotes into the Pending Msg field on the Second step Property pane. The employee will see this message when he/she submits the form and the task is placed on the Manager's Task List
- Click on Step 3 of your flow - in our example this is the Payroll step.
- Type "The Expense Report has been sent to Payroll for processing." without the quotes into the Pending Msg field on the Third step Property pane. The manager will see this message after clicking Submit on Step 2 and the workflow is routed to the Payroll department.
- Type "The Expense Report has been sent to Payroll for processing." without the quotes into the Pending Msg field on the Third step Property pane. The manager will see this message after clicking Submit on Step 2 and the workflow is routed to the Payroll department.
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
Save the flow.
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It is important that designers click the save and test icon to test the preconditions in your workflow. The Precondition Rule Builder displays an error if it encounters invalid JavaScript, however, runtime errors such as leaving off the .value are not flagged by the Precondtion Rule Builder because the JavaScript is valid. For example, the precondition in the image is missing the .value for the Loan Amount field. This precondition will pass the Precondition Rule Builder validation but it will not work. will catch this error when the flow navigates to Step 2. To correct the Runtime behavior, change the precondition to LoanAmount.value >=500000
the precondition to LoanAmount.value >=500000
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Precondition Example
For example imagine a mortgage application in which a Supervisor had to perform a step for all mortgages over 500,000.00. The flow has a 1st step where the applicant enters the loan amount into a field named LoanAmount. Step 2 is performed by a bank Employee and Step 3 is performed by the Supervisor only for mortgages over 500k.
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Either way Step 3 would be skipped for loans less then 500,000.00 or if the Employee set Send To Supervisor to 'no'.
The precondition logic is the same used when writing business rules. See the chapter on Business Rules. Make sure the controls used in preconditions are required controls. Controls without values used in preconditions will cause an error in the flow. Test for this when you are creating flows with preconditions to ensure that when the flow designer shares the flow with others that it will not display an error.
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To Skip a step if a Control Contains a Value
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The Quick Approval/Rejection wizard screen shown above displays in a manager's Task List as depicted here:
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Refer to the Using the Task List for more information about how to use the Quick Approval/Rejection Feature.
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If a task is accessed from an email that uses the task.perform.url, the user will be taken directly to the task. If the task is then rejected on the desktop, the display rejection popup displays instead of the embedded rejection page.
Email/anonymous
Configuring Reject for Steps performed by Anonymous Users
Anonymous Task steps in a flow can be rejected from but not rejected to. Let's say you have a Purchase Order workflow where the PO is sent to the customer for signature. The designer can configure a Reject button on this step (anonymous) so that the customer can send the PO back to the sender for corrections before signing.
Configuring Reject for Screenflows
Steps performed by the same user in a flow are referred to as a screenflow. The steps of the screenflow are considered as 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.
Customize the Rejection Email
It is possible to customize the subject and email message body that is sent when a workflow task is rejected. The customized rejection email will be sent when the Reject button is clicked on a 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:
- {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.step.name} - The step of the workflow that was being performed when the task was rejected.
{flow.step.reject.reason} - The reason for the rejection.
{task.perform.url} - The URL to the rejected task.
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Click here for an example showing how the Easy Reject feature works.
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?.
- The Manager:
- Approve the request in which case the workflow moves forward to the next step, VP review. This is the default behavior.
- Reject the workflow back to a previous step (Reject to Revise) by clicking the Reject button and selecting the step to send the flow back to from the Reject dropdown. The Manager may want to do this because some data needs correction or to obtain more information from the user who initiated the workflow. Reject to Revise is built-in to and can be configured for any step.
- Reject the request completely (Reject to Discard) in which case the workflow moves forward, skipping all subsequent steps and completes. A submission is created in the submissions repository. This process is configured using the precondition property for workflow steps.
- The VP:
- Approve the request in which case the workflow completes.
- Reject the workflow back to a previous step (Reject to Revise) by clicking the Reject button and selecting the step to send the flow back to from the Reject dropdown. The VP may want to send the workflow back to the Manager or to the user who initiated the workflow. Reject to Revise back to a previous step is built-in to and can be configured for any step.
- Reject the request completely (Reject to Discard) in which case the workflow completes.
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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:
- 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.
- If a previous step was performed by an anonymous user, then the user won't be able to reject to such a step.
- 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.
- If the immediate steps prior to the current step were performed by this 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.
- If a previous step was skipped because its precondition failed, then the user won't be able to reject to such a step.
- 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.
- 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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You can access your task list by clicking <a href="{task.perform.url}">this link</a> |
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The special template {task.list.url} can be used in the email body to generate a clickable link to the user's frevvo server task list. Here is an example:
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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 and send reminders but you do not have to choose all three. However, once a condition is selected one of the actions must be reassign or notify.
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 Then send notifications and Send Reminders as Condition is approaching sections but not Then reassign the task section. Continue reading for more details. |
The designer is encouraged to refer to the Help given for many of the fields on the escalation setup screen by clicking the
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- Click on the step in your flow where you want to set up escalation criteria
- Click on Setup Escalation link in the Properties pane. The wizard will display.
- Multiple escalation triggers can be setup for the same step in a flow by clicking the
- Select a condition from the dropdown. There are 4 choices:
- Perform By - A ‘Perform By’ escalation is deleted/completed when the step is performed by an owner (typically, clicking the perform icon on the task in the users task list and either saving/locking the task before the configured due date).
- Perform Within - A 'Perform Within' escalation is deleted/ completed when the step is performed by an owner (typically, clicking the perform icon on the task in the users task list and either saving/locking the task) before the configured duration).
- Complete By - A 'Complete By’ escalation is deleted/completed when the current step is completed (typically, clicking the 'Continue'/'Finish' button on a form step) before the configured due date).
Complete Within - A 'Complete Within' escalation is deleted/completed when the current step is completed (typically, clicking the 'Continue'/'Finish' button on a form step) before the configured duration).
Info An invalid due date template value will resolve to the current time to prevent any use-mode errors. The following message will appear in the frevvo logfile: "Escalation Due Date {DueDate} resolves to an invalid value":
- If the specified Due Date points to a Date Control and the value of the Date control is less than the current date, the Escalation is triggered right after task creation.
- If the specified Due Date points to a DateTime control and the value of the DateTime is less than the current time stamp, the Escalation is triggered right after task creation.
- If value of the Due Date datetime or date control is empty, Escalation is triggered right after task creation.
- Selecting the Perform By or Complete By conditions displays the following screen:
- The Due Date control dropdown displays all date controls in your form. Select from one of these choices or check the Use Fixed Date checkbox to enter a date/time as the deadline.
- The Due Date control dropdown displays all date controls in your form. Select from one of these choices or check the Use Fixed Date checkbox to enter a date/time as the deadline.
- Selecting Perform Within or Complete Within displays this screen:
- Specify the amount of time the user has to perform or complete the task in Days, Hours or Minutes.
- Check the Business Calendar checkbox if you want to use the business days, times and timezone specified for your tenant to calculate a task deadline. The business calendar is set up at the tenant level by the tenant admin.
- Specify the amount of time the user has to perform or complete the task in Days, Hours or Minutes.
- Once the condition is selected, you will see these additional sections on the screen:
- Then Reassign the Task
- Then Skip the Task
- Then Send Notifications
- Send Reminders as Condition is Approaching
- If the condition specified is not met, then you must specify Reassignment of the task to a different user/role or Notification to the user/role it is currently assigned to that the deadline has expired. You can configure both but at least one of these actions is required.
- Reassignment sends the task to the user/role selected if the deadline is passed. Selecting Reassignment displays the following:
- Select whether the task will be reassigned to a Role, User or Unlock to Role:
- If you select Role or User, then you must list it in the Assigne(s) field. Type ahead to display the Roles/Users in your tenant that begin with the letter you are typing and select from the list or enter comma separated templates. Remember that userids and roles are case sensitive.
Unlock to Role - This option unlocks the task. Use this option for a step in your flow that has a role assigned to it and you want to handle the situation where one user with that role has the task locked and the deadline for the task has passed. Selecting Unlock to Role unlocks the task and keeps it on the Task list of all users with the role after the deadline expires. Now it can be performed by any user with the specified role again.
For example, let's say you have a step in your flow that is assigned the manager role. Users Jerry and Jim are managers so the task shows up on both their task lists. Jerry clicks the
Reassigned users receive the Task Information email specified by the designer. So be sure to Setup Task Notification Email for the step in your flow where you assigned escalations and you want to reassign the task after the deadline.
- Select whether the task will be reassigned to a Role, User or Unlock to Role:
Check Yes in the Then Skip the Task checkbox if you want the flow to escalate automatically to the next step when the timer expires. When checked, the options on the Setup Escalations screen change. The Then Reassign the Task section is no longer visible. Notifications and reminders can be configured. Refer to the topics below for the details.
Info Skipping a task is only supported if the next step in the flow is a form/summary step. Configuring the Skip a task feature on the last step of your workflow will not work.
Click here for an example using this feature.Selecting Notifications displays the following screen:
Select whether a Role, User or the Current Owners from the Recipient Type dropdown to specify who will receive email notification reminders when the deadline is reached.
If you select Role or User, then you must list them in the Recipient(s) field. Type ahead to display the Roles/Users in your tenant that begin with the letter you are typing and select from the list. or enter comma separated templates. Remember that userids and roles are case sensitive.
Current Owners refers to user(s) who currently have the task on their task list.
The subject and body of the notification email are shown in the Subject and Messages sections. You can customize the email message by adding controls from your form. Select them from the Control dropdown. provides built-in templates that can be used in escalation emails. See the list below.
- Emails that serve as reminders as the deadline approaches are configured in the Reminder section.
- Emails that serve as reminders as the deadline approaches are configured in the Reminder section.
- Select Current Owners from the Recipient Type dropdown. This is the only choice. Selecting 'Current Owners' notifies the roles/user(s) originally assigned to this step.
- Specify the interval between reminders by entering the number of reminders in the Every field and select Days, Hours or Minutes from the Unit dropdown.
- You can limit the number of reminders by checking the Limit Reminder checkbox and entering the number of reminders closer to the deadline in the Occurence(s) field. If you enter a negative number in this field by mistake, will change it to a 1 when you exit the field.
- The message for the reminder emails are shown in the Subject and Message sections. You can customize the email message by adding controls from your form. Select them from the Control dropdown. provides built-in templates that can be used in escalation emails. See the list below.
Click the Submit button to save your setup.
Templates Provided for Escalation Emails
Here is a list of templates that can be used in escalation emails:
- {flow.activity.name}
- {flow.name}
- {flow.activity.escalation.duedate} - provides the deadline due date in GMT timezone. The tenant admin can change the timezone by selecting the correct timezone for your tenant when configuring the Business Calendar .
- {flow.activity.escalation.condition} - resolves to either 'start' or 'complete' depending on the condition value.
- {flow.activity.assignee} - current user/role
- {flow.activity.escalation.reassignee} - resolves to the new user/role that the task is assigned to.
For example, when a task is reassigned, you may want to specify the user/role that the task is being reassigned to (reassignee) in the email to avoid confusion. Simply add some text with this template in the Notification message section: {flow.step.escalation.reassignee}.
Reminder Message Template for Anonymous Task Step
If you are setting up Escalations on an Anonymous Task step and you choose to send emails to your users to let them know that the deadline for the task is approaching, change the default template {task.perform.url} to the {task.notify.url} template in the body of the Reminder message on the Live Forms escalation screen. 
The {task.notify.url} template is the correct one to use for Anonymous Task steps. An example of a Reminder Email generated with the {task.notify.url} template is shown in the image:
Escalations and Screenflows
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.
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If the first steps of a workflow consist of a screen flow then in order for escalation triggers to get created you must configure the flow to use the Save on Navigate and/or Task for First Step properties. |
Escalation Example 1
- The employee accesses the Time Sheet workflow, fills in the form, signs it and clicks Continue. Live Forms 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.
Escalation Example 2
The Project Approval workflow shown in the image must be approved by Approver 1, Approver 2, Approver 3 and Approver 4 in that order. Escalations on steps 1, 2 and 3 are set up to be completed within 5 minutes. If not performed by the Approver within the specified time frame (5 minutes), the step is automatically skipped and the workflow advances to the next step . Notice that notification and reminder emails are also configured.
In this example,
- The Complete Within condition is selected for Steps 1, 2 and 3 with a 5 minute timer.
- Notification emails are configured for Appovers 1, 2,3 and 4,
- Approvers 1,2,3 and 4 receive 3 reminder emails one minute apart until the 5 minutes expires.
- Step 4 is reassigned to someone in the Supervisor group if it is not performed within 5 minutes..
- Approver 1 performs step 1 of the workflow clicking the Save button. The task is placed on Approver 1's task list.
- Approver 1 receives 3 reminder emails, 1 minute apart, within 5 minutes.
- Approver 1 does not complete the task within the 5 minutes. The flow is automatically navigated to Approver 2's Task List. Approver 1 receives a customized email stating that the flow has moved to the next Approver.
- Approver 2 receives a Notification email which includes a link to the task.
- Approver 2 receives 3 reminder emails , 1 minute apart, as the 5 minute deadline approaches. Approver 2 does not perform their approval within the 5 minutes.
- When the 5 minutes expires, the task is removed from Approver 2's Task List and added to Approver 3's Task List. Approver 2 receives a customized email stating that the flow has moved to the next approver.
- Approver 3 receives a notification email which includes a link to the task.
- Approver 3 receives 3 reminder emails , 1 minute apart, as the 5 minute deadline approaches. Approver 3 does not perform their approval within the 5 minutes.
- When the 5 minutes expires, the task is removed from Approver 3's Task List and added to Approver 4's Task List. Approver 3 receives a customized email stating that the flow has moved to the next approver.
- Approver 4 receives a Notification email which includes a link to the task. Approver 4 does not perform their approval within the 5 minutes.
- The task is automatically assigned to all users with the role of Supervisor. Approver 4 receives an email stating that the flow has been reassigned to the Supervisor group.
The Audit Trail for this workflow records the skipped steps:
Activity Document Actions
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Activity Document Actions execute when the user clicks the continue button for each step. It does not matter if the next step is performed by the same user or if the step is put on the task list of a new role/user. If you are saving back to your own task list, by clicking Save on the flow step instead of Continue, saving to role or saving to a different user, in a flow, Activity Document Actions do not execute.
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Normally, 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.
The Quick View feature cannot be configured on a flow step that has the Save to Role property selected.
Save to User
Normally, 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. See the flow example Ad-hoc workflow: pass steps between arbitrary users for a deeper understanding of this feature. In this manner, you can create a step in a flow that loops several times and that dynamically routes to different people before continuing.
The Quick View feature cannot be configured on a flow step that has the Save to User property selected.
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.
Email Address
This property only applies to the Email step. Enter a valid email address to send an email to a non-authenticated user as a step in a flow. Clicking on the Email step and the task performed by the anonymous user in the Flow Designer, display Property panels. Not all of the properties are functional for these steps. .
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