Configuring Scheduled Workflows

Summary

Business processes can sometimes be triggered upon reaching a specific date, such as a task that needs to be completed two weeks prior to a client's first payroll date. Workflow channels now allow you to configure these types of automatic business processes using scheduled workflows. This topic provides a high-level overview of scheduled workflows as well as step-by-step instructions that can help you to begin using this robust feature to schedule the creation of workflow generated tasks and cloned dataforms.

To begin configuring scheduled workflows:

Go to System Admin > Workflow Channels.
The Workflow Channels list is displayed.
Click Add.
The Choose Workflow Triggering Type dialog opens with options to select Real Time or Scheduled.
When you select Scheduled, the Add Workflow Channel wizard opens with Step 1 Channel. In this step, you will configure the date that will trigger the scheduled Workflow Action.
Configure the following options:
- Channel Name: Provide a descriptive name of the workflow process.
- Triggering Form: Select the form that will trigger the workflow. You can add a triggering form that is not in the list.
  - To add a dataform that is not in the list:
    - In Triggering Form, go to the end of the list and select Add Untriggered Form.
      The Select an Untriggered Form dialog opens. Table Name contains a list of all dataforms currently not marked as Triggerable.
    - In Table Name, select a dataform from the list.
    - Click Ok.
      The selected dataform is marked as triggerable and will now appear in the Table Name list.
- Field: Presents a list of available Date fields from the Triggering Form selected.
- Frequency Limit: The Workflow task or dataform will be triggered once every X days based on the value of this field.
- Date Offset: The number of days (before or after the date stored in the triggering field) this workflow item will trigger. For example, -5 equals five days before the triggering date field.
- Grace Period: The number of days, starting with the offset date that the workflow will attempt to trigger. When this grace period has ended, the workflow will not trigger again until the frequency limit has passed and the triggering conditions are again met.
- Triggered Form: The task or dataform to be generated when the triggering conditions are met.

After you have configured the Scheduled Workflow Action, you will receive a brief synopsis of the Schedule:

When the last field is completed, the wizard progresses to Step 2 Content. See the article Configuring Workflow Channels to continue the step-by-step procedures.

After your configured workflow is saved, these conditions are evaluated by a scheduled process (Generate Scheduled Workflows) to determine if the date field combined with the other workflow schedule options as well as any additional Conditions added in Step 4 (Conditions) are met.

It is important to note that since these workflow triggers are scheduled, the real time field analysis to determine if a field has changed (IsDirty) cannot happen. Because of this, you will notice that the IsDirty qualifier is not available when adding additional triggering conditions to scheduled tasks.

If all of the triggering conditions are met, the dataform or task will be generated from the Workflow. These actions can then trigger other dependent workflow items (such as a second task spawned when the scheduled task is complete) or completely new workflow channels. In this way scheduled workflows can be used to drive your business processes based on milestone triggering dates stored in your system.