Approval Workflows
- Robert Alexander Marshall
Approval workflow
A Comala Document Control workflow helps you manage the review and approval process for content on a page or blog post.
The workflow shown above consists of two states: Review and Approved.
Each of the three bundled Comala Document Control approval workflows allows you to
ensure that content is reviewed and signed off
assign specific users as reviewers
Once a workflow is added and applied
it automatically defines content as approved or draft depending on the state
users with View-only permissions will be directed to view the latest approved version of the content
Workflow added to a page or blog post
Pages and blog posts with an added workflow will have a breadcrumb for the current workflow state added to the content page sub-title.
A user's key interaction with the workflow added to content is through the workflow popup accessed through this breadcrumb.
The workflow popup includes
the available user options for the current state
a progress tracker bar to view the states in the workflow and display the next state available
The movement between these states is called a transition - these transitions occur based on events in the workflow such as approving content, rejecting content or updating content.
By default, the workflow breadcrumb and popup are only displayed to users with view and edit permission for the page or blog post.
In this initial Review state for our chosen workflow
a user can undertake a review decision for an approval - Approve or Reject
one or more users can be added as a reviewer
A user approval decision will usually action a workflow transition to a different state. In an approval decision, the destination state is determined by the applied workflow.
The workflow records these actions in a workflow activity report for the page.
Workflow states can be hidden from the progress tracker path in the workflow popup.
In the example, the Rejected state is hidden.
The hidden state will be displayed in the workflow popup
by rolling the mouse over an approval button if it is a destination for a content review decision
when the page or blog post is in the hidden state (and will then be displayed in the progress tracker bar)
In the bundled Quality Management System workflow, the In Approval state content review has assigned reviewers and the requirement for reviewer credentials.
Workflows in Comala Document Control
Comala Document Control has the choice of three installed workflows, each with different states and transitions:
Each of these installed workflows build on the basic workflow above - 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.
Publishing a page to a workflow final state is a way of managing and differentiating draft and approved pages in the same space. In Comala Document Control, View-only users will be by default directed to the latest approved version of the content, but due to Confluence restrictions and permissions, this does not guarantee the security of content. If you require fully secure publishing of content, you need to use Comala Document Control together with the Comala Publishing to publish content to a target space to use the full Confluence space permissions involved.