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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:
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:
Click Manage Tenants.
The next steps are for both frevvo In-house and Online tenant users:
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.
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 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 sue and assign sue the role of HR.
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.
Name the workflow Leave Approval Workflow and give it a meaningful description. Click NEXT.
You will be able to search your forms/workflows by Name and Description, so use keywords that will help you find it later.
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.
If you completed the Getting Started with Forms exercise, you should have a Leave Approval Form listed. If not, you can select Create New Form instead.
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.
You can navigate Workflow Step Properties two ways:
This example suggests the 2nd approach, but choose what works for you!
Add Task Information so manager Jerry can identify the task when he sees it on the Task List, such as "Leave Approval for {FirstName} {LastName}"
Dynamically assign this step to the right manager based on which employee starts the workflow.
Click on Forms in the Guided Designer header. Notice that in addition to the Employee Information and Leave Request sections that you added, there are now also sections labelled Manager Approval and HR Approval. These were added by the Workflow Design Wizard, along with rules that show/hide them on the correct step.
You can edit the form in the Workflow designer Forms view.
Be aware that changes made to a form in the Workflow Designer are not reflected in the original form in the Forms designer. If you want your changes reflected in both designers, make the changes in the original form in the Forms Designer, then replace the updated form in your workflow in the Workflow Designer.
Click the Rules icon in the Guided Workflow Designer header. Notice that several rules are already in the list - the rule you created earlier "Sick Certification", as well as several rules the Workflow Design Wizard created to show/hide our approval sections. We'll add one more.
Let's add a rule to prefill the user name, email address and manager's id on our workflow. Follow these steps:
Click
Add.Give your rule a Name and Description. Click Run Builder.
Add your condition and actions. For this rule, you don't need Else Actions. Your rule finished rule should look like this.
We'll skip this for now, because this workflow will produce a built-in PDF snapshot. Visit Generate Pixel Perfect PDFs for more details about you could map form data to an existing PDF.
Next we'll make sure to save a PDF snapshot of this form that can be emailed for confirmation or added to the employee's file.
Check the Save PDF checkbox on the Settings tab so that a PDF image of the workflow is saved in the frevvo submission repository. Notice that a PDF Name area appears. Enter
Leave Approval for {LastName}.{FirstName}.{StartDate}
Entering a control name inside curly brackets will replace that text with the run-time form/workflow data, providing you with a dynamic experience. Many place have a dropdown to help you select the correct control name, as this is case-sensitive.
Add a message that the HR user will see when they complete the workflow.
Enter you custom message
Leave Approval successfully processed for {FirstName} {LastName}.
A great way to test your workflow is to use a frevvo space. A space is a frevvo website that is very easy to create. Your deployed forms/workflows are automatically added.
Follow these steps to create the space:
Click on the tab for your project and then click on the Leave Approval workflow. This brings you to the first step in your workflow. The workflow automatically has a navigation bar to indicate which step you are currently in as well as the next steps that are coming.
Fill in the fields in the 1st step, remember to sign and click the Send to Manager button to route the workflow to the Manager for approval.
Tom should see the customized pending message that you set up on the manager activity in the workflow.
Click on the Important Items tab, then click the Task List. Jerry will see the pending Leave Approval request from Tom. Note the Task information that we set up on step 2 of the workflow using the template - Leave Approval for {FirstName} {LastName}
Logout of your frevvo space.
Workflows can be custom styled to fit the look & feel of your existing web site. See Layouts and Styles.
Refer to Workflow Design Patterns for a discussion of useful design patterns for workflows.
See the Business Rules chapter for the details and examples of how to add behaviors to your forms/workflows using the Visual Rule Builder.