Workflow Elements

A workflow consists of elements. The following sections describe each type of
element:• Tasks

o Manual task

o Automated task

• Approval process

• Line-item elements

• Flow-control elements

o Manual decision

o Conditional decision

o Parallel activity

o Subworkflow

Manual Task

A manual task is a unit of work that must be performed by a user. For example, an expense report workflow can have manual tasks that require the assigned users to:

• Review the receipts submitted with the expense report.

• Call an employee’s manager.

Automated Task

An automated task is a unit of work that must be performed by the system. (It
requires no human interaction.) For example, a sales order workflow can have
automated tasks that:

• Performs a credit check.

• Creates a customer record for the customer, if one does not already exist.

Approval Process

An approval process is a process that consists of separate steps. The user at each
approval step can:

• Approve the document.

• Reject the document.

• Request a change to the document.

• Assign the document to another user for approval.

Line-Item Elements

A workflow can be created to process documents, or the line items on a
document. For example, assume that you have created an approval workflow for
timesheets. (This workflow will be referred to as the document workflow.) You
can add a line-item element to that document workflow. When the line-item
element is executed, each line item on the document is submitted for processing.
You can have all the line items processed by the same line-item workflow, or you
can have each line item processed by a different line-item workflow.
Suppose that an employee has submitted a timesheet that resembles the following
figure.



In this scenario, you can create the following line-item workflows:

• Line-item workflow 1: This workflow is used to process line items
where the project ID = 1111.

• Line-item workflow 2: This workflow is used to process line items
where the project ID = 2222.

• Line-item workflow 3: This workflow is used to process line items
where the project ID = 3333.

Flow Control Elements

You can use the following elements to design workflows that have alternate
branches or branches that run concurrently.

• Manual decision: A manual decision is a point where a workflow
divides into two branches. A user must take an action, and the action
taken will determine which branch is used to process the submitted
document.

• Conditional decision: A conditional decision is a point where a
workflow divides into two branches. The system will decide which
branch to use by evaluating the submitted document to determine
whether it meets a specified condition.

• Parallel activity: A parallel activity is a workflow element that
includes two or more workflow branches that run at the same time.

• Subworkflow: A subworkflow is a workflow that runs within the
context of another workflow. 

Regards,
Hossein Karimi