Creating a custom workflow for your documentation process

Custom workflows

A Comala Document Management workflow can be created to meet your document management process needs.

Create a custom workflow using the workflow builder

Each of the included workflows can be customized using the workflow builder visual editing tool, or you can create a custom workflow for your own needs.

The workflow builder visual editor lets you:

Add new states and edit existing states
Add and edit state transitions
Add and edit approvals

You can customize individual approvals in the workflow to

Allow manual assignment of reviewers from the workflow state dialog box on a page
Set or restrict reviewers for each approval

You can also use the workflow builder to create a new workflow.

Creating a new workflow

You can create a new workflow using the workflow builder:

In an instance, as a global template
For a space, as a space workflow
On a page, as a page workflow

As a space administrator:

You can create a new workflow in the space workflows dashboard:

Space document management dashboard - No workflows

Choose the Add Workflow button

In the Add workflow dialog box, to open the workflow builder:

Choose Create Workflow

Addworkflowpdialogbox_picker_CreateWorkflowoption_highlighted.png

Add workflow dialog box - Create Workflow

A simple starter workflow template is displayed in the workflow builder

Workflow builder - Create Workflow

Add a name for your workflow and edit the starter workflow to add your own workflow states, transitions, and approvals
Choose Save and Exit to add your new custom workflow to the dashboard

As a global administrator, you can create a new global workflow for the instance using the workflow builder in the app’s global options. Open the global workflows templates dashboard and scroll down to choose the Create Workflows button to open the workflow builder.

As a page editor:

You can choose to create and add a custom workflow to a page without an active space workflow

In the page tools menu:

Page tools - Add workflow

Choose Add Workflow

An administrator choosing the page tools Add Workflow option must then choose between options to add a workflow to a page and add a workflow to all the pages in the space (which opens the space document management dashboard).

Choose Create Workflow in the dialog box to open the workflow builder and edit the starter workflow

addworkflowdialogbox_pageworkflow_createworkflowoption_customstatesworkflowoption.png

Add workflow dialog box - Add page workflow

A page editor also has another option to create a new workflow. In the Add workflow dialog box

Choose the Workflow with custom states
Remove and add the required workflow state names in the dialog box
Select Apply & Customize to edit the new workflow in the workflow builder

You can also create or edit workflow template markup using the markup editor.

In the workflow builder, you can toggle between the visual editor and the markup editor. Changes saved in one editor are automatically updated in the other editor.

Save as template

In workflow builder, a workflow editor with the appropriate Confluence administrator permissions can

Save a page workflow as a template to the space workflows or the global workflows templates dashboard
Save a space workflow as a template to the global workflows dashboard

workflowbuilder_extract_saveastemplate_options_administrator_permission.png

Workflow builder - Save as template options

Flexible and responsive workflows

To create more responsive and flexible workflows, a workflow editor can add one or more workflow triggers to respond to workflow events, such as a reviewer assignment, label change, or a state change, and set one or more actions. These actions can include sending custom notifications (emails and workflow messages), setting or removing page-level restrictions, or changing the workflow state.

The workflow editor can also add one or more workflow parameters to manage workflow metadata values used in your workflow. Once defined in the workflow, your page editors can manage and edit these workflow parameter values on each page or in a space. These can be used, for example, as placeholders (value references) for user values who are added as reviewers or due date values for the expiry of content. Adding workflow parameters to your workflow lets you use a workflow across different teams, projects, or spaces without needing to edit the workflow itself. The values can be edited at the space level or page level and used, for example, when the workflow is first applied on page creation.