Templates and Workflow
Component Templates, Page Templates and Template Building Blocks may be subject to workflow (Template Building Blocks only if they are part of a Bundle). If you open these items in Content Manager Explorer, the Workflow tab shows their workflow properties.
If the Workflow tab shows only the text Approval Status: followed by a value, one of the following is the case:
- If the value is Undefined, the item is not subject to Workflow at all.
- If the value is Unapproved, the item has either completed at least one Workflow Process, which did not assign any Approval Status to the item, or it has never entered a Workflow Process.
- If the value is neither Undefined nor Unapproved, the item has completed at least one Workflow Process, which last assigned the Approval Status you see to the item.
If the Workflow tab shows a History of Activites area in the top half and an Activity Details area in the bottom half, then the item is subject to workflow and currently in a Workflow Process.
You see the following:
- History of Activities
-
A list of the Activities of this Process. If the item has already gone through and finished a Workflow Process in the past, you see a dropdown from which you can select previous finished Workflow Processes.
The History of Activities area shows the following properties per Activity:
- <Icon>
- If the icon shows a green checkmark, the Activity has finished; if not, it has not finished yet.
- Name
- The name of the Activity, preceded by a number of indicate which step in the Process this is. (The number is useful to distinguish, say, a first review Activity from a second review Activity.)
- Owner
- The User currently performing the Activity. If this is empty, the item has been assigned, but not picked up yet.
- Assigned To
- The Group or User to whom this Activity is or was assigned.
- Approval Status
- The Approval Status of the item after this Activity has finished.
- Activity <number> <name of Activity>
-
This area shows the properties of the currently selected Activity. The area label is the word 'Activity', followed by a number to indicate which step in the Process this is, followed by the Activity name. (The number is useful to distinguish, say, a first review Activity from a second review Activity.)
You see the following Activity Details:
- Name
- The name of this Activity.
- Description
- A description of what this Activity entails.
- Task Name
- If this Activity is applied to a type of item, the name of that item; if this Activity is a Task, the name of the Task.
- Process Definition
- The name of the Workflow Process Definition that this Activity belongs to.
- Approval Status
- The Approval Status determines whether or not the item(s) associated with this item can be published to a specific Target Type.
- Assigned to
- The Group or User to which this Activity was assigned.
- Performer
- If the Activity has a Started or Finished state, the name of the User who is currently performing (if Started) or has most recently performed (if Finished) the Activity.
- Assigned on
- A timestamp representing the moment at which the Activity was assigned, immediately after the previous Activity finished.
- Started on
- If the Activity has a Started or Finished state, a timestamp representing the moment at which a User picked up the Activity.
- Finished on
- If the Activity has a Finished state, a timestamp representing the moment at which a User finished the Activity.
- Previous Activity Message
- A message provided by the User who finished the previous Activity in this Workflow Process, typically intended as instructions to the current Owner.
- Time Spent
- If the Activity has a Finished state, the amount of time that has passed from the moment the Activity was first assigned, to the moment a User finished the Activity.
- Publication
- The Publication that contains the item(s) involved in this Activity.
- State
- The state that the Activity is in: Assigned, Started, Failed, Suspended or Waiting for Workflow Agent.
The Related Items area shows the list of items associated with the current Activity.
If you select an item, you can do the following:
- Preview
- Preview the item in a new dialog.
- Open
- Open the item for editing in a new dialog.
- Compare
- If you also select two Activities from the History of Activities list, Compare shows you how the selected item changed between those two Activities. This button is disabled if Content Manager is not configured to save snapshots of the item you selected.