Revision as of 13:54, 12 May 2022

Overview

A [Overview|Workflow] is a set of repeatable steps used to automate and streamline your business processes within the system (e.g. creating review forms and notifying reviewers via email).

Use case

Once your application hits a specific status, there may be a handful of activities that need to be created or fields that need to be updated in order for the application to move to the next status. By using various workflow tasks, you can have all these tasks completed automatically, simplifying your granting process.

Example:

Once an application is moved to the Approved Status - you want to create a payment activity, a few report activities, send an email to the applicant, and update the Approved Date field.

Some applications may have already been in the Approved Status but were sent back for review or updates. In this case, you don't want applications that have already gone through the Approved Status workflow to repeat the tasks listed above once their status is updated to Approved again. In this case, you will configure the workflow to bypass the create new activity and email tasks and only update the Approved Date field.

Configuration - Essentials

Creating a  New Workflow

• Create a new workflow by clicking the plus button on the workflows home page.

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• Select Workflow Type: The type will dictate what information/fields will be available when creating tasks - You can select different UTA’s, levels, contacts, organizations etc… as your workflow type. 
• Name the workflow and add it to a Category   
  1. Suggested naming convention: Activity Level (1/2/3) - Goal/Status 
     1. EX: L1 - Approved Status 
  2. Categories are created by your organization. We suggest creating categories based on the UTA and Record Level. 
     1. EX: Application Manager L1
• Add a description for your workflow. 
  1. Include a list of tasks and branching conditions for ease of review later. 
  2. Add notes to your workflow if you make changes to it. 

• Set the Trigger-On
  1. This dictates what status or stage of the record will set this process in motion.
  2. Depending on the workflow type, you will be selecting from a list of statuses or activities. 
  3. For our example, we will be triggering our workflow when a record hits the Approved status. 

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*Tip* → You can build your workflow on your production system first and test it on your backup the next day. Make sure to set the Trigger-on to Deactivate so the workflow won’t run. Once your workflow appears in your backup, you can set the Trigger-On to the correct status and test your workflow without worrying about impacting your production environment. 

Configuration - Advanced - Creating Tasks

*Best Practice* →  Create all of your workflow tasks before connecting the tasks. 

Creating Your First Task

• Navigate to the Task tab found on the left side of your screen. 

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• To create a new task → Click on the plus sign button found on the top left corner of your screen (highlighted in image above). 
  • We suggest creating an Acknowledgment as your first task type. 
  • Name this task Placeholder. 
    • This task will not have a function but will indicate that a workflow has started when looking through workflow history/logs on the record that has passed through this process.

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Creating Your Remaining Tasks (2-4)

Task 2 – Create Payment Record 

• Task Name → Create Payment Record 
• Task Type → Create New Activity 
• Select the activity type you want to create and the default status the activity should be created in. 

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• Under the scheduling tab → configure the L2 activity to meet your requirements. Not all fields listed in this section need to be configured - it will depend on the activity type.

→ Start Date / End Date: Choose the date fields that will determine the start and end date of the activity scheduling period. 

→ You can set the frequency the activity is scheduled - activities will be created immediately, but the date will take the frequency into account. Note that activities will only be automatically      scheduled within the time frame set above. 

→ Select the field from the grant application that contains the grant amount. This value will then be split equally between all payment activities being scheduled. 

→ You can also select the field where the amount of each payment will be stored - note that the total amount will be divided equally between all of the activities. 

→ Select the date field that will determine the scheduled activity date.

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Note: If you do not see a Scheduling Tab → make sure to toggle on advanced options found near the top right of your screen. 

Task 3 - Send Approved Receipt 

• Task Name → Send Approved Receipt 

• Task Type → Acknowledgement 

• In this case, you will be using the acknowledgment task to send an email to the applicant. You can specify who the email will be sent to under the Routing section. Select Owner if you want the email to be sent to the applicant. 

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• You can configure the email being sent by navigating to the Message Template tab. 

• Here you can specify:

→ Message type (instant message or email).

→ Email template (can create from scratch or choose an existing template).

→ Add a subject to the email template.

→ You can use the Variable Syntax helper (found in the configuration mode shortcuts) to test your email template against a record. Copy the email template and paste it into the helper. This will allow you to confirm that you are populating the correct information in your email template. 

• We always suggest saving your email as an event. This will store the email as an event on the user profile.
• You can also add attachments to the email template here. 

→ To do so you will need to reference a custom field where the document is stored. The format used to reference the field is @#Custom Field ID#@

→ You can attach multiple documents. They will need to be delimited by semicolons. 

→ Saving the email as an event will create an Email activity on the Application record - this makes it easier to track communications between your organization and the applicant. 

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Task 4 - Create Progress Report  

• Task Name → Create Progress Report 

• Task Type → Create New Activity

• Select Progress Report from the activity drop-down and specify the configuration for the new activity under the Scheduling tab (visual example shown in Task 2).

Task 5 - Create Final Report  

• Task Name → Create Final Report

• Task Type → Create New Activity 

• Select the Final Report from the activity drop-down. 
• In this case you only want to generate a single Final Report, so you will not need to configure any fields under the scheduling tab. 

Task 6- Create Contract 

• Task Name → Create Contract

• Task Type → Create New Activity 
• In this case you only want to generate a single Contract, so you will not need to configure any fields under the scheduling tab. 

→ You can also generate a contract through the Generate PDF task - but you will not be able to alter the document once the PDF is created. By creating a contract activity, you are able to make adjustments to the contract's content.

Task 7 - Update Approved Date - 

• Task Name → Update Approved Date 

• Task Type → Update Custom Field Value

• Select the field you want to update → Date Approved

• You can then enter the updated field value below.

• If you want to update the field to the current date - enter the following variable - @date(currentdate)@

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Appendix

Options and Settings

Common Tasks

Display Settings

Examples