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Workflow Tutorial
Approval workflows are everyday actions that businesses perform on a routine basis. This tutorial will show how easy it is to create an Approval Workflow using frevvo. We will use an example of a services Purchase Order workflow to demonstrate design patterns and frevvo features. If you need basic help using the frevvo Workflow Designer, please refer to the Build a Workflow guide, and then return here.
This is a hands-on, in-depth tutorial. If you prefer, you can view a playlist of Quick-Start Workflow Tutorial videos.
What are we going to build?
Many companies offer software services to their new and existing clients. This tutorial will produce a Purchase Order workflow for services that follows this business scenario:
- A sales person accesses the company's Purchase Order form, fills in the customer's email address and other required information, signs it and clicks Continue.
- frevvo sends a customized email to the customer that contains a link to the PO.
- The customer clicks on the link, reviews the Purchase Order, approves and signs it or sends it back to the company for corrections
- The workflow is routed back to the sales person.
- The sales person reviews the PO, and sends it to his manager for approval. The manager receives an email.
- The manager clicks on the link in the notification email, logs onto frevvo to review the PO via the Task List. He approves or sends it back to the sales person for corrections.
- If approved by the manager and the total amount of the PO is greater than $10,000.00, the workflow is routed to the VP for final approval.
What You Will Need
You need either a frevvo Online account (request a demo if you don't already have an account), or a frevvo On Premise software installation. If you are using On Premise software you will also need to create a tenant, add a designer user to that tenant and configure email.
Example Project
Download this example project (WorkflowTutorial_project.zip) that contains completed workflow examples as well as the forms you need to build the workflow yourself using the steps below.
Upload the project to your frevvo user account. Follow these steps:
- Browse the appropriate URL below and log into your tenant as the designer user:
- Cloud: https://app.frevvo.com/frevvo/web/login
- On Premise: http://<server>:<port>/frevvo/web/login
- Click the Add icon at the top of the Projects Home Page and select Upload Project.
- Browse for the downloaded project zipfile (WorkflowTutorial_project.zip).
- Do not check the Replace or Copy checkboxes.
- Click the Upload button.
The project is uploaded and immediately appears in your list of projects.
Set Up Roles and Users
We need to create several roles and users assigned to those roles in order to complete all of the steps in this tutorial. Users and Roles can only be created by the tenant admin.
Create the VP Role
Login to frevvo as the tenant admin.
Click the Manage Roles link.
Click the plus icon.
Type "VP" into the role name and click Submit.
Create Users
We'll create a few users and assign some of them roles and supervisors.
Add "jerry"
Log on to frevvo as the tenant admin.
Click Manage Users on the Manage tenant page
Click the add new user icon which will bring up the Add New User form
Enter "jerry" as the User Name then enter all the required information - leave the Reports To and Roles fields empty. Click Submit.
Edit "designer"
- You should be back on the user list - click the edit user icon for the designer user.
Select jerry from the Reports To dropdown. Click Submit.
Add "ed"
Click the add new user icon which will bring up the Add New User form
Enter "ed" as the User Name then enter all the required information.
Leave the Reports To field empty
Select the VP role from the role dropdown. Click Submit.
Add "sue"
Click the add new user icon which will bring up the Add New User form
Enter "sue" as the User Name then enter all the required information.
Leave the Reports To and Role fields empty. Click Submit.
Add "jim"
Click the add new user icon which will bring up the Add New User form
Enter "jim" as the User Name then enter all the required information.
Leave the Reports To field empty.
Select VP from the Role dropdown. Click Submit.
You should be back on the user list. Logout.
Create a frevvo Portal
A portal is a built-in website that's very simple to create and makes it easy to test your forms and workflow(s). We will create a frevvo portal to test the remaining examples. The Task Notification emails for the remaining Purchase Order examples will send the user to their Task List in your portal.
Default Portal
The Tenant Admin can set a Default Portal on the Manage Tenant page. Task Notifications will then link the user directly to their task or task list in your Default portal without the need to configure the URLs in the workflow properties.
- Login to your tenant as the designer user.
- Open the Workflow Tutorial project.
- Find the Purchase Order Workflow in the list.
- Click the Action Menu and select Deploy to remove the development watermark and deploy your workflow to production.
- Click the Portals link at left. Click the Add icon.
- Enter a Portal Id i.e. workflowtutorial and a Portal Name i.e. Workflow Tutorial Portal and click Create. You will be directed to the Portal Editor. Click Save.
- From the Action Menu, select Share. Copy the URL, paste it into a new browser window, and bookmark it. We will use it in Step 9 below.
We will add our workflow to the portal a little later.
1 - Create the Workflow
First, build the workflow using the Workflow Design Wizard, which provides an easy way to quickly create all of your approval steps and business rules to route them at once.
Let's begin by using the built-in Workflow Design Wizard to create the steps of our workflow and automatically add routing and business rules.
- Click the name of the Workflow Tutorial project (or click the Action Menu and select Open.) to go to the Forms and Workflows homepage.
- Click the
Add icon and select Create a New Workflow. The Workflow Design Wizard will open. - Enter a Name and Description for your workflow, i.e. Name: "My Purchase Order Workflow," Description: "Example PO workflow for tutorial." Click Next.
- Notice that the first three steps are created for us. Name the first step "PO." Then, instead of the default "Create New Form," select the existing form "PO" form from the Step Type dropdown.
- Name the second step "Client Approval"
- Leave the default Step Type set to "Approval Step"
- Leave the default Assignment Type "To an Email Address." You will see that the email field defaults to your email - leave that as is for now. We will change it to a template later.
- Name the third step "Sales Review"
- Leave the default Step Type set to "Approval Step"
- Change the Assignment Type to "To a User." Add yourself as the user. We will change it to a template later.
- Click the Add icon to add Step 4.
- Rename the new step "Manager Approval"
- Leave the default Step Type set to "Approval Step"
- Change the Assignment Type to "To a User." Add yourself as the user. We will change it to a template later.
- Click the Add icon to add Step 5.
- Rename the new step "VP Approval"
- Leave the default Step Type set to "Approval Step"
- Change the Assignment Type to "To a Role." Add the role VP (you will have to SetUpRolesandUsers)
Click Finish. Your initial workflow should look like this:
The Workflow Design Wizard added some controls and business rules for you, which saves a lot of time! These can also help you to understand the actions of business rules so that you can change them or add your own. Open the PO step by clicking the pencil icon. Scroll down and notice that the wizard added approval sections for Client Approval, Sales Review, Manager Approval, and VP Approval. The Client Approval has a Wet Signature control and a Date control. All the other approval sections are Text/Signature Image Signed sections because they will be performed by authenticated users.
Now, look at the business rules by clicking the Rules Icon. Some of these came over with the PO Step, but the rules to show/hide the approval sections on each approval step were added by the Workflow Design Wizard.
Visit the Workflow Design Wizard documentation for more details about how it streamlines workflow creation!
This workflow sends the Purchase Order electronically to the customer for their review and signature.
- The customer's email address is entered by the sales person on the first step.
- An email is sent to the customer with a link to the PO.
- The customer clicks the link to review the PO, approves and signs it or sends it back to the sales person for corrections.
- frevvo sends a copy of the signed PDF to the sales person by email.
Note, the customer does not have to be logged into a frevvo tenant (anonymous) to perform the Approval step.
We need to customize:
- The Approval Section on the PO form.
The Task Assignment that sends the step that the customer signs.
Task notification emails to the customer and sales person.
A document action to send an email to the sales person and the client. A signed PO is attached to the email when the workflow is completed.
You will need at least one valid email address to test this workflow.
2 - Edit the Workflow Steps
We will customize the Continue Button text, task assignments, and pending messages the user will see when they complete each step. These quick customizations will route the workflow as follows:
- The Client receives an email with a link to review and approve the PO. When they click submit, they'll see a personalized confirmation on the screen.
- The sales person receives an email with a link to their task list. The frevvo Task List is like an email inbox where users can find all the tasks requiring their attention. In this example, the sales person will access their Task List, review the signed PO and complete the workflow.
- The PO form has a hidden field that is populated with the frevvo user id of the sales person by a business rule. We will set an assignment on the Sales Review step that uses the information in this field to route the workflow back to the sales person. We can also customize the Task List notification email that the sales person receives.
- Next, we will route the workflow to the sales person's manager for approval. A customized Task Notification email will alert the manager that there is a task requiring his attention. You already created the user (jerry) in frevvo and edited the designer user to specify jerry as the manager the designer user reports to. We can route the workflow to the manager using {subject.report.to}. This is an example of built-in data that frevvo makes available for every transaction.
- Next, we will route the workflow to the VP for approval. A customized Task Notification email will alert the VP that there is a task requiring his attention.
Notice that in the Guided Designer: Workflow editing mode, clicking on a step opens the Step Properties Wizard where you can select a tab to edit settings. Then, clicking another step takes you to the same tab on that step. We will follow this convenient paradigm to edit various properties for each of our steps.
Continue Button
- Click the Client Approval Step. Type 'Send to frevvo, Inc' into the Continue label property to change the text to something more meaningful.
- Click the Sales Review step. Type "Send to Manager" in the Continue Label property.
- Click the Manager Approval Step. Type "Finish or Send to VP" in the Continue Label property.
Task Assignment
On the Client Approval step, click the Assignment tab. Remove your email and enter the template {ClientEmail} into the Assign to Email property. ClientEmail is the field in Step 1 where the sales person enters the email address of the customer. frevvo sends the PO to the email address entered in that field. This is an example of a template. Note the control name is encased in curly braces. Type the subject for the email - "Purchase Order from frevvo". Copy the text below into the message field to replace the existing message. This is the email the customer receives.
{ClientName}, <br/><br/> Please review and sign this Purchase Order from frevvo Inc. by clicking on <a href="{task.perform.url}">this link</a>. <br/><br/> Thank You.