What is a Comala workflow?
- Robert Alexander Marshall
Overview
A workflow codifies a business or compliance process into...
States and Transitions
These define the milestones (states) and routes between them (transitions) of your process. Transitions can take place based on content change, a content review, or a trigger action.
Content reviews
Content reviews (known as approvals) are key events in the content production lifecycle. Reviewers check the content and decide whether to approve or reject it. Based on this decision, the workflow moves the content to a new workflow state - a content review transition. For some reviews, you can assign one or more users as reviewers.
Events → Triggers → Actions
As users interact with content and the workflow, events are sent, such as a state change, an approved review decision, or a task assigned.
One or more workflow triggers can be set to listen for an event, such as a state change to a specific state.
When the event occurs, the trigger can set one or more actions. These include sending a custom email, setting a message, or changing the state.
You can use these triggers to augment the content production process and automate workflow transitions.
Workflow Parameters
Workflow parameters act as placeholders for values that can dynamically change. They are useful for creating a workflow that can be used for different spaces, teams, or projects. For example, workflow parameters can be used to specify:
users assigned as reviewers for approvals
duration periods for workflow state expiration
The workflow parameter values can be updated in each space by the space administrator.
Adding a workflow parameter to a workflow
A space administrator can edit a workflow to add one or more workflow parameters using a workflow builder visual editor in the app space settings
A workflow parameter uses one of the following data types:
character string
Confluence username(s)
Confluence groupname(s)
duration
a list of set values
The parameter value can be accessed in the workflow by the parameter name wrapped in @ (at) symbols. They can be used in a range of macros, including approval, state selection, and trigger macros.
Workflow Template
A Comala workflow is stored as a template in JSON code. The app space settings list the available workflows in a space.
Three workflows are available in all the spaces when installing the Comala Document Management app. These workflows are appended with Template in the app space settings.
The included workflows cannot be overwritten, but they can be duplicated and the copy edited in the app space settings to create a custom workflow.
You can also create a new custom workflow using the visual builder or import a workflow template as JSON code using the code editor.
Custom workflows are added to the app space settings.
The workflows are listed alphanumerically in the app space settings screen.
The workflows in the app space settings are displayed in the workflow picker when choosing the Add Workflow breadcrumb on a page and applying a workflow to an individual page or blog post as a page workflow.
Workflow builder visual editor
A Comala Document Management workflow can easily be edited or created using the workflow builder visual editor.
Workflow code editor
Each workflow is scripted using JSON code and is stored in a template. The workflow template can be edited in the code editor.
A workflow template can be added and applied to an individual page, or, more usually, in production mode, the space administrator adds and applies a workflow to all documents in a space.
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