Add the Create Approval action

The Topic Workflow template Inspire provides includes an Activity for approving content. In the Topic template, the Transition from the Review Activity to the Approve Activity is completed manually by the user in the Reviewer Workgroup. To automate the approval process, you can add an Action to have Inspire send notifications to confirm which reference components need to be included in the approval process.

Required permissions

You must have permission to the Projects Module to work with projects and workflows. Other than that, you do not need special permissions to create, edit, or delete workflow templates.

However, keep in mind that administrators and other users can set permissions on components and folders.

  • You must have permission to edit the workflow template component.
  • You must have folder permissions where the template is stored.
  • For details on how to check and set permissions, refer to: Set permissions

For a complete list of permissions, including starting a workflow from a template, read: Workflow permissions.

Tips and tricks

  • This automated Action is only available in a topic workflow template (not a sequential reviewer template), or a completely new workflow template component.
  • You can create an entirely new workflow template component that has no default Activities and Transitions.
    • Use the Topic workflow template explained in this topic as an example of what you can create.
    • To create a new template, follow the steps in: Create a workflow template component.
  • When using the InspireCreateApproval action in an active workflow:
    • Users are prompted with a screen to include referenced components and enter an optional label and comment.

      Important notes

      • You cannot select from a list of referenced components; either they are all approved, or none are approved along with the source component.

      • The Label and Comment are shown on the History tab for the record with an Action of Update and a Type of Approve.

        The contents of Label are shown in the Name column, directly before the Comment column.

  • No approval actions occur during this automation. Approval can occur manually or in the InspireApprove action.
  • An Action is unique to the template it's included in. If you want to use the new or updated Action in a different template, you have to re-create it in that specific template.
  • After you add this new Action to the provided template or a custom template you've created, you can use it in a workflow transition.

To add a Create Review action to a topic workflow template:

  1. Click Components.
  2. In the Folders pane, select Workflows.

    You can save a workflow template to another folder. If you did this, open that folder instead of the Workflows folder.

  3. In the Components pane, select a workflow.

    The InspireCreateApproval action is only available in Topic workflows or a completely new workflow template component.

  4. In the workflow editor toolbar, click Actions.
  5. On the Action Management screen, click Create.

  6. On the Create Action screen, in Name, enter the following string of characters exactly: InspireCreateApproval.

    Important notes:

    • Do not use any spaces
    • Make sure to use capital letters for Inspire, Create, and Approval
    • If the string is not entered exactly as shown, Inspire will not be called to send notifications or open the Review Approval screen
  7. In Description, do one of the following: you can leave it empty or enter the following text:
    • Leave it empty.
    • Enter the following text: System action to send an email notification to each workgroup user assigned to the previous activity to confirm the inclusion of referenced components.
    • Enter your own text.
  8. To save your changes on the Create Action screen, click Create.
    Results:
    • You can see your new action on the Action Management screen.
  9. To save the list of actions, on the Action Management screen, click Save.
    Results:
    • Your list of Actions is saved.
    • The InspireCreateApproval action is added to the template Actions options but is not in use until you add it to a Transition.
    • When you create or update a Transition, you can select the InspireCreateApproval action.