Workflow Fundamentals

Welcome to the Workflow Fundamentals series, in which we will look at some of the principles and basic steps involved in workflow or change management.

You may already be familiar with some of the topics covered in this series of videos, and you can skip those topics if you wish. You can also revisit topics and videos whenever you like, if you need more information, or simply to refresh your memory.

Understanding Change Management

We will start with the principles of workflow management. Workflow can be used to underpin many different business processes, change management being, perhaps, the most familiar one. View the video to find out about the purpose of workflow or change management, and how it is handled in vFire.

For more information on managing workflow, see Managing Requests.

Creating a Simple Workflow

Now that you are familiar with the principles, and how vFire uses templates to manage processes, we will look at how to create a basic workflow. This will include creating a template, reading a workflow diagram, adding tasks, and creating links between the tasks. View the video to find out more.

See Managing Tasks and Dependency Diagrams for more details.

Adding Task Details and Assigning Tasks

Having created your workflow diagram, you can add details to your tasks, and assign them. Watch the video below to find out more.

See Creating a Standard Task for more details.

User Approval Tasks

Having learned how to read a workflow diagram, and create and assign basic tasks, now we will look at some different task types that will typically feature in a workflow.

User Approval tasks allow users to approve or reject tasks using the vFire Self Service portal.

View the video to find out more about this task type.

See User Approval Tasks for more details.

Messaging Tasks

Messaging tasks can be used to notify analysts, users, stakeholders and other relevant people about the progress of the current request. Analysts can add recipients when sending email or pager messages at key points within a workflow process, or they can be implemented automatically if required. They can be used anywhere in the workflow and are an excellent method for keeping users, analysts and key stakeholders informed of decisions and workflow progress.

See Messaging Tasks for more details.

Delay Tasks

Delay tasks can be used to stop the workflow for a specified duration, after which the workflow progresses with the next task in line.

See Delay Tasks for more details.

Activation Tasks

Activation tasks are automated tasks that you can use to configure a workflow to wait until parent tasks have been completed (all or some of them, depending on your choice); or an activation "score" has been reached, by which you can assign values to different triggers so that some or all of them must be met to activate the task.

See Activation Tasks for more details.

SLM Start and Stop Tasks

SLM Start and Stop tasks enable the SLA linked to the request to begin at a designated point in the workflow, rather than at request authorization. vFire Core will start and/or stop the clock on any SLA linked to the current request using the SLM Start Task and/or SLM Stop Task defined in the workflow. Watch the video below to find out more.

See the SLM Request Explorer Option topic for more details.

Conditional Branching Tasks

Conditional Branching Tasks perform actions based on whether or which conditions are met. You may want to create a conditional branching task to assign approvals; to direct a workflow; or to update values based on different conditions being met. View the videos to find out more about how to use conditional branching tasks to make your workflow more efficient and flexible in different scenarios.

See Conditional Branching Tasks for more details.

Closure Tasks

Closure tasks mark the end of a request. A Closure task can be used to set the implementation reason and request status for a request. A request can have multiple Closure tasks depending on the workflow path. They can be automated or manually run by an analyst. By default, these tasks are set to be manually initiated. If the request does not have a closure task, the request manager must manually close the request.

View the video to find out more about closure tasks.

See Closure Tasks for more details.