Getting started with Comala Document Control
- Robert Alexander Marshall
Overview
Comala Document Control workflows help you manage the document review and approval process.
The Basic Approval Workflow above consists of three states - Review, Rejected and Approved - and one or more transitions from a state to one or more of the other states.
The workflow manages the document approval process with content moving from one state to another.
In the displayed workflow
the Review state
a state for draft content
allows one or more users to approve or reject the page or blog post content
the Approved state
a state for final content that has been approved
if this content is updated the workflow moves back to the Review state
Each workflow has different states and approval processes but all these workflows allow you to
ensure that page content is reviewed and signed off
assign specific users as reviewers for the content review in a workflow state
track the progress of your reviews and approvals
Only one workflow can be active on an individual page or blog post at any one time.
Workflows in Comala Document Control
Comala Document Control for Cloud has the choice of three bundled workflows. These are available in all the space settings document control dashboards in each of your cloud site spaces.
The three workflows are
Each workflow have different
states (milestones)
transitions from one state to another state (process routes)
content review activities (approval and review process)
Each installed workflow builds on the basic approval workflow - adding more states and transitions, setting an expiry period for approved content and automatically assigning content reviewers to provide greater control of your document development and management.
Adding a workflow to content
You can add a workflow to your content in two ways
A user must have admin permission in a space to apply a workflow to all content in the space.
Applying a workflow to all space content using the Comala Document Control dashboard allows greater central management of your content and is the recommended use of a Comala Document Control workflow in a production environment.
Space workflows
A space admin can configure a space to add and apply a workflow to all content in the space using the space settings Comala Document Control dashboard.
The space admin can choose to make one workflow active in the space.
The active workflow is
added and applied to all the existing pages and blog posts in the space
added and applied to any new documents created in the space
Only one workflow is active on a document at any one time. Making another workflow active in the dashboard disables the existing workflow.
Workflow added and applied to a page
Once a workflow is added and applied to a page or blog post defines content as approved or in draft depending on the workflow state
Pages with an added workflow have a breadcrumb for the current workflow state added to the content page sub-title.
Draft and approved content
If the content has previously been approved an added View approved byline link to the last approved version.
Choose the View approved to view the last approved version.
When viewing this last approved version of the content
the byline Approved (Compare versions) is displayed confirming this is an approved version
and a link View pending approval to the current draft content version.
State byline and workflow popup
The user key interaction with the workflow added to content is through the workflow popup accessed by the state byline breadcrumb.
User authentication for approvals
For the Quality Management Systems workflow, the In Approval state content review has assigned reviewers and the requirement for reviewer credentials using an e-signature.
The workflow popup displays user options for moving the workflow from the current state to one or more destination states.
For an approval, the user only decides on the approve or reject decision, the workflow manages the transition based on this approval decision.
The popup progress tracker bar is used to view the states in the workflow. The movement between these states is called a transition - these transitions occur based on a user approving content, rejecting content, or updating content.