V4 Workflows In Confluence

Creating multi-user workflows in Confluence

View the Workflows in Confluence video for more information.

For example, consider a Vacation Request workflow. An employee wants to request vacation and fills out the appropriate portion of a paper form. The form is then handed over to a manager who must approve the vacation request, sign the form, notify the employee and file the paper form and/or notify HR.

Using Live Forms for Confluence, you can automate this entire workflow so that it is completely electronic in Confluence.

Employee Vacation Request

Manager Approval

The steps are as shown in the figure above:

1. An employee goes to a Confluence page that contains the workflow.
2. Since the employee does belong to the 'manager' Confluence group, he will only see the relevant portion of the form.
3. The employee fills it in and clicks a Continue button.
4. frevvo puts the task on the manager's task list, [optionally] notifies the manager by email and displays a confirmation message to the employee.
5. When the manager logs in, she visits a Confluence page that contains her task list.
6. The employee's vacation request will be displayed in the task list.
7. The manager performs the task. Since she belongs to the 'manager' Confluence group, she will see the manager-specific portions of the form. The employee-specific portions are automatically pre-filled.
8. She approves/rejects the vacation request, digitally signs the form and clicks Finish.
9. The employee is notified by email, and [optionally] a PDF image of the form is sent to the internal document management system or to Google Apps or saved in frevvo's submissions repository.

Now, let's go through the process of building this workflow in Confluence.

Setup roles in frevvo

This is a one-time setup that will have to be performed by an administrator.

You only need to create roles in frevvo corresponding to the Confluence groups that you actually want to use in your workflow.

View the multi-user workflows video to see details of creating these roles.

Assume that you have groups in Confluence called 'employee' and 'manager'. To create these roles in frevvo:

1. Login to frevvo as the administrative user for the tenant that was created in Confluence.
2. Click the Manage link at the top right of the page.
3. On the page that is displayed, click the 'Manage Roles' link.
4. Click the [[Image:Add.png] icon and in the form that is displayed type in the desired role. Make sure that the role names match exactly (including case).

Create the Vacation Request form

View the multi-user workflows video for more information.

Read the documentation on creating forms in Confluence.

Read the general frevvo documentation on designing forms for a detailed discussion of frevvo forms and their features.

Vacation Request Form

1. Add a Confluence Page and Add a form to it.
2. Drag and drop controls on the form as desired.
3. In the Figure above, we have
   1. Created a section for the employee called Request.
   2. Enabled digital signatures for this Section by clicking on the Section header and then on the Security Tab in the properties pane to the left. In the Security Tab, the Must Sign box is checked.
   3. Created a section for the manager called Manager Approval.
   4. Enabled digital signatures for this Section.
   5. Assigned role 'manager' to this Section.

Create the Vacation Request workflow

View the multi-user workflows video for more information.

Read the documentation on adding flows to Confluence pages.

Read the general frevvo documentation on designing flows for a detailed discussion of frevvo workflows and their features.

Vacation Request Flow

1. Add a Confluence Page (say, Vacation Request Flow) and Add a flow to it.
2. Drag and drop forms into the flow as desired.
3. In the Figure above, we have
   1. Dropped the Vacation Request form twice into the workflow.
   2. Left the Role blank for the first step.
   3. Set the Button Label for the first step to 'Send to Manager'.
   4. Assigned the Role 'manager' to the second step.
   5. Set the Task Info for the second step to 'Vacation Request for {Name}'.
   6. Set the Pending Msg for the second step to 'Your request has been forwarded to your manager.'
   7. Customized the Task Notification email for the second step to include a link to the Task list page in Confluence (see below).

Vacation Request Flow

1. To configure email, click on Doc Action for the flow and selected 'Email data to a specified address'.
2. In the wizard, for the To address select the Email control to generate a template. When the flow is completed, frevvo will send an email to the address that was entered in the Email control in the form.
3. Select PDF in the 'Send Snapshot' drop down.
4. You should also uncheck the 'Send Data' box unless you want to send the XML data.
5. Click Next and you can configure the subject and content of the email as desired.

Create the Task List page

View the multi-user workflows video to see details of creating these roles.

Read the documentation on adding tasks to Confluence pages.

Read the general frevvo documentation on tasks for a detailed discussion on using the task list.

1. Add a Confluence page (say, Task List) and Add Tasks to it.

Use the workflow

View the multi-user workflows video to see an example flow being used.

Employee filling in Vacation Request Flow

1. Login to Confluence as an employee.
2. Navigate to the 'Vacation Request Flow' Confluence page, to which you added the workflow.
3. You cannot see the Manager Approval section since you do not belong to the 'manager' Confluence group.
4. After signing the request, the 'Send to Manager' button will be enabled. Click the button to send the request to a manager. You can also send the request to a specific person rather than any user in the group manager.

Manager's Task List

1. Login to Confluence as a manager.
2. Navigate to the 'Task List' Confluence page, to which you added the task list above.
3. Expand the Vacation Request Flow row and you will see the task for the request we created above.
4. Click the icon to perform this task.
5. The form will be displayed in its original Confluence page.

Employee filling in Vacation Request Flow

1. Fill in the Manager Approval section.
2. You must sign the section before the flow can be completed.
3. Notice that you cannot edit the employee's request data because of the digital signature. You can override this in the flow designer and allow the manager to remove the signature and edit the section.
4. Once completed, the Finish button will be enabled. Finish the flow to send an email to the employee.