In the BusinessOptix platform you can use workflow with a form to track the review and approval status of each form submission. For example you may have a change request that requires approval before it is worked on. For the users who need to review or approve the user experience is the same as if they are reviewing/approving any other model type in BusinessOptix.

In this short knowledge article we'll explain how you can connect your form with a workflow. 

Configuring Your Form

Before you start configuring the form you need to decide whether you want the workflow to start when it is first submitted or saved by the user who creates the form. Alternatively you may not want all form submissions to start a workflow and you want a user to decide when or even which workflow to start. You can also do both if you want.

Once you've made that decision you also need to decide which users (or user groups) will be assigned the review and approval steps in the workflow.

Starting Workflow on Form Submission

In order to start a workflow as soon as the form is submitted by the person completing the form, you need to select the form in Author and select the workflow in the Start Workflow property.

Starting Workflow from a Button

If you would like a workflow to only start when somebody is viewing the form then you need to add a button to the form. Set the On click property to 'Start a workflow' and then select the workflow in the Workflow to start.

Setting up Reviewers and Approvers

The workflow you've configured is likely to want to know which users will complete the review or approval steps. In a process model the author will set these up for you. In a form you may want the person who is completing the form to have choices and select that from different fields on the form. To connect the form fields to the roles you use the form Field Mappings on the model.

You'll notice that there is a Due Date and Status option on the Field Mappings. Neither of these affect the workflow, nor does the workflow update them. The Status is used directly on the Model Status and is typically used on a form when you have a drop-down field for the form submitter to set a status. And due date records that against the task for the form owner, i.e. the person the form is assigned to.

Additional Design Considerations

When the person completing the form chooses to start a workflow the platform will check that the users required for the workflow have been set-up correctly. For example if the workflow requires a minimum of 3 approvers and none have been set-up then the person completing the form will be shown an error. It is down to the form designer to ensure the field mappings are correct for the workflow being started. 

When a button has been selected to start the workflow then it will be disabled until the form is saved for the first time. If you would prefer the button is hidden then place the button in a fieldset and set the visibility rules for the fieldset.

Only one workflow of the same type can be running on a form at a time. If a workflow has already been started, then an author will need to open the form submission and cancel the workflow.

If you don't want anybody to edit the form whilst the workflow is running then you need to configure the workflow to check-out the form. 

If you are planning on using the same workflow on the form multiple times then you need to consider incrementing the minor (or major) version number of the form each time the workflow is started. This is so that a previous review or approval decision is not taken into account on the workflow.