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Examples of Approving/Rejecting workflow tasks and Important topics about the behavior of workflows are discussed below.

  • Cloud customers will see several pre-built workflow and form templates when you sign in to your account. All workflow templates in the Cloud come with short Guided Tours. that automatically launch, and are intended to show you how to run the workflow.
  • On-demand help about the flow properties is also available.

Refer to Testing Workflows for information about testing them.

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Designers should consider the Save on Navigate feature for workflows if you want to save entered data when the browser is closed before Saving or Submitting.

Approval Flows

Approval workflows are very easy to automate in . The requester fills out the original form (or set of forms) electronically and the flow is then routed it to the appropriate person or persons according to the desired business scenario. They’re notified with an email and can take action instantly using any device e.g. instant approval using a smart phone. E-signatures are collected and pdfs can be generated along the way.  offers multiple integration options so you can save your data. 

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Approving a Task

Reviewing a task for approval is very easy in  using the Task List. The approver can use the Quick Approval or the Perform icons to  display the approval step. Quick Approval displays a Quick View of the task without displaying the entire form. It allows the user who's responsibility it is to review the task (manager, supervisor, reviewer etc.) to add a comment, approve or reject, sign and pass it to the next user in the flow. This works well on mobile devices. Of course, if the approver wants to see the entire form they can click the Details button.

 Follow these instructions to approve a task for the flow that you downloaded:

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Searching for Tasks

Click the  icon on the Task List to search for a form you have saved and want to continue, that you have submitted in the past, or to search for a flow you have participated in. You can narrow your search to specific forms or flows, a date range when you performed a task or only tasks that ended with errors. You can check one or more task states (Saved, Submitted, WAITING, PENDING, ABORTED) to include/exclude tasks from the search results.

Search will only show tasks that the user has participated in.  

Select a Form/Flow from the dropdown and Filter Form/Flow by Data" table becomes visible and enabled. You can use this table to optionally select fields that are set up as Searchable Fields in your form/flow by the designer as search criteria.

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Using the Task List
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Tenant Admins and users with flow admin permission are able to search for tasks that were performed by other users. One very common function is to search for tasks that are locked by a particular user so that the flow admin can modify them and reassign them to another user or role -- for example if a person goes on vacation and you need to move a saved or pending form or flow to another user. 

If no matching tasks are found as a result of your search, you will see this message:

View My Task

Users logged into  are able to view workflow steps that they performed by clicking on the icon in the Audit trail. When you are viewing your task, you may notice the read-only view watermark. This is to remind you that you can view the information but can not make changes to it.

You will not see this icon for rejected tasks, tasks that have been reset/reassigned/aborted by a tenant or flow admin, or tasks that have been saved to your Task List.

Note

You will only be able to view tasks that you have participated in.

Let's say you submitted a Leave Approval Request to your manager and you want to view the information that you entered. You are not sure if your manager has approved it or if your request is pending your Manager's approval (pending state).

Here is how you find it:

  1. Login to your tenant
  2. Click on My Tasks or Task List under Important Items if you are using a space
  3. Click the Search icon
  4. Select the workflow from the dropdown
  5. Search for your task in the Task List.
  6. Click the to display the Audit Trail
  7. Click the View icon to see the data that was entered.
  8. Click the the Image Modified View Audit Trail icon again to return to the Task List.

Refer to View My Task for additional information about viewing tasks when workflow steps are performed by the same user or sent to an anonymous user.

Saving forms/flows to complete at a later time

Users may not have all the information required to complete a form/flow in a single session.  offers a Save/Load feature that adds a Save button to the bottom of the form: Users can  partially complete forms/flows including leaving required fields blank and even having invalid data in form fields then click Save. The partially completed form is saved to the user's Task List. Later the user can re-open the form either in the same browser or a different browser or even from a different computer, and reload the partially completed form and continue working on it. You can save the form/flow as many times as you like. Clicking the  Saved Tasks icon displays all tasks partially completed by the user. Each time the Save button is clicked is tracked by creating entries in the Audit TrailSaved forms are not the same as submitted forms. Saved forms do not appear in the Submissions Repository. Saved forms can contain invalid data and also contain required fields with no values yet entered. When such a form is re-loaded the missing and invalid values are again flagged as such by . And the form cannot be submitted (the submit button will be grey'd out) until corrections are made to those fields. 

Follow these steps to Save a form:

  1. Logon to your  space as f_tom.
  2. Select a form/flow from the tab you created. Fill in some parts of the form/flow but do not complete it. Click the Save button. The "Save Successful" message will display.
  3. Click the  icon to display your Saved forms.
  4. Click the Perform icon. Add some more information but do not complete. Click the Save button. The "Save Successful" message will display.
  5. Save the form a third time then complete the form/flow.



Note

If your form/flow does not have a Save button, contact the form/flow designer.

 

Sending Emails in 

 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 workflow.

Clicking the link in the Anonymous Email more than Once

The link in the email sent to an anonymous user can be clicked more than once in a screenflow consisting of an Anonymous Task step followed by multiple sequential anonymous steps. The anonymous user is brought back to the flow at the current/latest anonymous step if the Save on Navigate feature is selected. 

For example, imagine a New Listing Agreement workflow where the Real Estate agent can elect to send an email to the seller (anonymous user) to collect the property details. In this scenario, the agent fills in steps 1 and 2 of the flow supplying the Seller's email address. The Seller receives an email with a link to the first anonymous step (Seller Information). The Seller clicks on the email link, completes the Seller Information and Property Information steps then the flow is routed back to the agent for review.

In the designer, the flow would look like this: Notice the Seller and Property information steps represent a screenflow since they are both filled out by the same person (Seller).


Let's say the Seller completes the Seller Information step then closes the browser. When the seller clicks on the link in the email again, the Seller will be directed to the Seller Information step.

If the Save on Navigate property is checked for this workflow then the anonymous user is brought back to the flow at the current/latest anonymous step (Property Info) when they click the email link a second time.

Workflow Behavior for Consecutive Steps assigned to the Same Role

If a user performing step 1 of a flow also has the role assigned to step 2, a pending task is created if the next step has a role assignment. The flow is saved to the submissions repository. Task notification emails are sent to the user(s) when configured.

This can be useful when you have two or more steps assigned the same role in a sequence but you don't want the same user to perform them. In this case you want a new task list item created for each step.

This change only applies to roles. You will see this behavior:

  • For workflows designed with individual steps and linked steps.
  • When you use templates or hard coded roles for navigation
  • When a summary step is in between 2 workflow steps.

Note

When navigating back using the navigation bar, the behavior is the same as that of a screen flow.

For example, imagine a two step workflow where Step 1 is assigned the role of Employee and Step 2 is assigned the role of Manager.


User John has the roles of Employee and Manager. Users Jerry and Jim have the role of Manager. When John completes step 1 of the workflow:

  • The flow is saved to the submissions repository and can be viewed as a Pending task in the submission table.
  • Users will see the default "Your request is being processed." display message or your text if you customized it.
  • A task appears on John, Jerry and Jim's Task List for further processing
  • Task notification emails are sent to John, Jerry and Jim.

The image shows John's task List and the associated Audit Trail after step 1 of the flow has been performed.


Public forms/flows with Save/Load or Digital Signatures

Anonymous users can access public forms that include the save/load feature or digital signatures. These features require a login. When the anonymous user clicks to save or sign, they will be prompted with the login screen.

Flow Processing Modes

The Navigation toolbar provides the ability for a user to navigate back and forth between the steps of a workflow. This is helpful if the user needs to return to a previously competed step to make a correction or review the entered data. Editing of previously completed steps in a workflow is no longer possible if the previous step was completed by a different user than the current user. Previously completed steps are now rendered as read only unless it is a prior step for the same user, with no intervening steps belonging to another user. This feature is referred to as View mode.

Navigating through completed steps rendered in View mode using the the Continue button, skips completed steps such as HTTP Wait Notify  and anonymous Email. Configured document actions are not re-executed in View mode.

Let's consider the example of a new Employee On Boarding workflow, configured with the navigation toolbar. The first 4 steps in this workflow are referred to as a screenflow since they are all completed by the new employee. The screenflow in this example, consists of an Employee Information, W -4 Allowances, Education, Summary and Confirmation forms. New employee, Tom, realizes when he gets to the Confirmation step(4) that he needs to make a correction on the Allowances step (2).

Tom clicks the Allowance step in the navigation toolbar or the details button on the Summary step and is able to edit the data to make his correction. Tom clicks the Continue button to return to the confirmation step, signs the confirmation form then sends the workflow to his manager.

Before manager Jerry approves the workflow, he wants to review the previously completed steps to ensure all is in order. Jerry clicks on the Employee step of the navigation toolbar and is able to review the information but he will not be able to edit it.

 

Clicking the Continue button displays the subsequent tasks in View mode and eventually brings him back to the Manager Approval step where he can approve or reject the task.