This guide takes you through step by step instructions to create a Leave Approval Workflow. This tutorial uses the form you created in the Build a Form tutorial.

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 frevvo, 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, 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. frevvo 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 frevvo.
The employee fills in the form, digitally signs it and clicks a Submit Request button.
frevvo 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 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.

frevvo In-house Only

If you are using frevvo 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:

Login as admin@d and type in the default password: admin.
Click Manage Tenants.
Click the
icon to create a new tenant
Do not check the "Are you creating a tenant for Confluence" checkbox. Leave the Max Concurrent Users and the Security Manager Class blank.
Fill in the rest of the fields for your tenant. Click Submit.

frevvo In-house and Online

The next steps are for both frevvo In-house and Online tenant users:

Login as the tenant admin user. An example of the tenant admin user id is: admin@mycompany.
Each tenant has its own admin user that has permission to perform management functions for the tenant such as creating new users and roles. For frevvo 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.

Setup users and roles

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:

Click Manage Roles. Notice that the role frevvo.designer already exist by default and cannot be deleted.
Click the
icon to create a new role. Add the role name "Employee" and click Submit.
Repeat step 2 to add the "Manager" and "HR" roles.
Click the Back to Manage Tenant link.
Click Manage Users. Notice that the user admin already exists by default and cannot be deleted.
Click the
icon each time to create a new user.
Add the user named "jerry" and assign jerry the role Manager. Remember to click submit for each one.
Add the user named "tom". Assign the Employee role to user tom. Since jerry is tom's manager, select jerry from the dropdown list in the Reports to field.
Add the user sue and assign sue the role of HR.
Add the user named "designer" and assign the special role of frevvo.designer
Logoff as the tenant admin.
You now have your tenant setup and ready to create and test a simple Leave Approval workflow.

Creating the Leave Approval Workflow

Logon to your frevvo tenant as the designer user i.e.designer@mycompany. Replace mycompany with the name of your frevvo tenant.
On the My Project homepage, click the project name My Company HR that you created in the Build a Form tutorial. You can also select
Open from the
Action Menu.
You will see the Forms and Workflows homepage.
Click the
Add icon and select
Create a New Workflow.
Name the workflow Leave Approval Workflow and give it a meaningful description. Click NEXT.
Now the Workflow Design Wizard will guide you through creating and assigning steps.
1. Rename Step 1 "Employee" and change the Step Type to Use Existing Form: Leave Approval. This will use your existing Leave Approval form to start the workflow.
2. Click
  Add and rename Step 2 "Manager". Leave the default Step Type of Approval Step. Change Assignment Type to "To a User". You can select any user in your tenant.
3. Click
  Add and rename Step 3 "HR". Leave the default Step Type of Approval Step. Change Assignment Type to "To Role(s)" and select HR.
4. Click FINISH. Here is what your workflow should look like:

Workflow

Customize the User's Experience

Next we'll customize the buttons and messages the users will see as they interact with the workflow. First, click Workflow in the Guided Designer header to return to the Workflow Outline.