Start a workflow
In a project, you can automate the hand-off process between tasks by using a workflow. You design the activities and transitions in a workflow by configuring a template. Inspire provides a topic and review workflow or you can customize a template to follow your organization's business processes. To start a workflow, you must select the template that contains the process you want to use. Then you must add the due dates, assign the initial task, and identify the topics in the project that will be used in the workflow.
Understanding required permissions
Required permissions
To create, view, update, and delete workflows you must either be an Administrator, the project Owner, or have the following permissions:
- Create, read, update, and delete permissions to the
Projects module. - For the Projects module, your user account must be listed under the following Property: can_initiate_assignment.
- If you are an administrator, refer to Allow users to create project assignments and workflows.
To work with Review workflows, you also need:
- Create, read, update, and delete permissions to the
Reviews module.
If you try to assign work to a participant who doesn't have access to the component, you will see a warning.
- The warning tells you the name of the restricted component.
- The Workflow is still created. You can change the permission, participant, or the component to resolve the conflict.
- For details on how to set permissions, refer to: Set permissions
Starting a review workflow
Inspire provides a template that automates the review process when there are two reviewers who need to complete their work in a specific order.
You can customize this template or save a copy and edit it.
Automate reviews with a workflow template
Understand the reviews workflow
The reviews in this template don't occur at the same time. Instead, one or more reviewers are assigned to the first phase, and when they complete their review, Inspire assigns a review to the second set of reviewers.
You can start a review workflow in the following ways:
From an existing project on the Workflow panel
The option to start a workflow from the Selected Components panel can only be used to create a Topic workflow. It cannot be used to create a Sequential Reviewer workflow.
Starting a topic workflow
Inspire also provides a template to automate the process of developing, reviewing, approving, and publishing content.
- The workflow starts with an initial Activity: Develop Topic(s).
Inspire sends a notification to the Workgroup (Writer) and checks out any attached components to users in the Workgroups: Writer and the coordinator. The Activity ends when users in the Workgroup Writer or the coordinator marks their task as Completed.
- The workflow progresses to a Transition of Send for Review.
Transitions connect activities and tell Inspire what to do next. They are shown in small rectangular boxes. Inspire checks in the changes to the components or adds the new components to the workflow. Inspire also notifies the coordinator about the workflow's progress.
By default, the Send for Review Transition from the Developing topics Activity to the Reviewing content Activity is completed manually by the user in the Writer Workgroup.- To automate the process, you can add an Action to have Inspire open a new Create Review screen automatically.
- To learn more about this automated workflow, read: Add a Create Review Action to a topic workflow template.
The workflow moves through the rest of the activities and transitions until the process is complete. To learn more about what occurs at each stage, read Understand the topic workflow.
You can customize this template or save a copy and edit it.
Automate content development with a workflow template
You can start a topic workflow in the following ways:
From the project's Selected Components panel
The option to start a workflow from the Selected Components panel can only be used to create a Topic workflow. It cannot be used to create a Sequential Reviewer workflow.