Understanding and planning the Workflow template
Follow the planning steps below before creating the Workflow template.
- Identify and define the tasks that are necessary for the ContentRoutingProject or Project to be completed. If the tasks differ depending on work to be done, list the tasks separately according to the types of work to be done. Use the lists to create separate workflow templates for the ContentRoutingProject or Project based on the work to be done.
- Define the route that the ContentRoutingProject or Project takes from task to task. Do this for each list of tasks. Note that the task route does not have to be a one-way route. For example, a project may go from one task to another and back again until work is approved. After approval, the project may then be forwarded to a different task. Identify these task routes as well. In the workflow, these routes are identified with a double-sided arrow.
- Identify the roles that are associated with a task. For example, a technical writer or documentation specialist may be associated with a writing task, while a copy editor may be associated with a reviewing task.
You may have several tasks that have the same generic name. For example, the following are four review tasks that are quite different.
- Review for technical accuracy
- Review for grammar and spelling
- Review for formatting and composition
- Review for final approval
Each of these reviews is a separate task and should be noted as such. You create unique reviewing task names in the workflow. This allows you to easily identify each review task. You would likely, also have custom roles associated with each of the tasks.
Workflow tasks
Contenta delivers these Workflow tasks.
- Start: This task is for ContentRoutingProject or Project creation. The ContentRoutingProject or Project object is created, then objects that need revision, modification, or authoring are reused (linked) into the ContentRoutingProject or Project. Whomever creates the project is automatically assigned to this task. However any projman user assigned to the Start task as a team member, has permission to forward the project from the Start task into the workflow and make edits to the workflow, roles, and users for that project.
- Writing: This task is for the authoring, modifying, or editing of the data in the ContentRoutingProject or Project.
- Reviewing: This task is for the review and (optionally) the approval of new data in the ContentRoutingProject or Project.
- End: This task is for posting changed data back to the linked copies in the database. It is also the task for deleting the ContentRoutingProject or Project object after posting. This is assigned to the creator of the ContentRoutingProject or Project by default.
You can create custom tasks with the custom task option in the workflow template window.
Workflow roles
Contenta delivers these roles.
- sysadmin: This user has overall responsibility for creating user desktops (adding user logins to the Contenta software), creating the Contenta hierarchy, assigning tools to users, creating and/or adding custom tools, objects, and roles. S/he also allows access to objects in the workflow by linking, or creating references to the configuration and placing it on users’ desktops. The sysadmin also identifies the workflows and creates the workflow templates.
- projman: This individual is responsible for creating the ContentRoutingProject or Project objects including, identifying the data that needs revision or authoring, assigning the appropriate workflow to the ContentRoutingProject or Project, assigning individuals to the tasks in the workflow, and posting the revised data back to the configuration. The projman is assigned to the Start and End tasks in the workflow.
- writer: This user typically does the revisions, modifications, and/or authoring of data in the ContentRoutingProject or Project.
- reviewer: This user typically is responsible for reviewing the revised, modified, or newly authored data in the ContentRoutingProject or Project.
Custom Workflow roles
The ability to create custom roles allows you to assign specific permissions (to manipulate data and objects) according to a user’s responsibilities in the workflow.
Custom roles also provide a way for you to make appropriate and specific, role-task assignments in the workflow. Without the use of custom roles, it would be necessary to assign the same role to several tasks in the workflow, as in the following example.
- You would need to assign every user who is responsible for any of the tasks, to all of the tasks. For example, Harry and Gavin are both reviewers. You have two review tasks in the workflow—one for technical review and one for proofing. Harry is the technical reviewer and Gavin is the proofing reviewer. When making the role assignments in the workflow for a ContentRoutingProject or Project, both Harry and Gavin would have to be assigned to both tasks.
- You could not assign different and specific permissions to different users based on the task they are to perform. Permissions are assigned by role therefore both Harry and Gavin would have the same permissions. If you wanted to allow Gavin to edit data, you would also have to allow Harry to edit data.
- It is important that other users assigned to the workflow know who is to accomplish which task so that the ContentRoutingProject or Project could be forwarded appropriately. Both Harry and Gavin would be listed in the forward window for each of the review tasks. When the ContentRoutingProject or Project is forwarded to the technical review task for instance, the user forwarding the ContentRoutingProject or Project would have to know that he or she must select Harry from the list to forward it appropriately.
See the Contenta Administration User topics for more information about creating custom roles.