Introduction 

The Workflow Designer tool provides the ability to configure automated system tasks in the DMS and Construction Forms.  It is available under a BIMXtra Enterprise Licence.

DMS workflows can be used to monitor, distribute, and copy files in the DMS, while the reporting and monitoring tools allow visibility on the status of workflow documents.

Construction workflows can be used to automatically create and allocate forms on the project.

The Workflow Designer tool has a drag and drop style user interface where elements of the the workflow can be laid out and configured easily.  User are provided tools in the designer that closely mirror manual equivalents but that also include some additional features specific to workflow creation.  A workflow consists of various 'Nodes' connected together to produce a result set of actions in BIMXtra.  The Nodes are located in the designer and clicked to open and configure them.

Watch this video for a quick overview: 

Workflow Designer

The Workflow Designer is the application to create automated workflows for the DMS and Construction Forms.  It is available for users under an Enterprise Licence, who also have either:

• Superuser role or,
• DMS Workflow Designer role, for DMS Tasks
• Construction Workflow Designer role for Construction Tasks

Workflows

Workflows are individual collection of tasks that are configured to automate business processes and launch BIMXtra actions in your project.  They can be saved as Templates, so that their scheme design can be copied into other projects as new workflows.  These template derived workflows can then have the new project specific conditions set to it EG Monitoring project Folders, or creating Project Forms.

Each workflow runs as a separate action to all other workflows, and each workflow runs with the credentials of the user who created it in the project.

Workflows must be 'Started' to be operational and in turn they can be 'Stopped' when required.  Therefore, importantly, when editing a running workflow, it must be restarted in order to action any edits you have applied to it.

Add New Workflow

Click to create a new blank workflow, enter a Description and click Save. the new workflow will be created but not yet selected.

Select Workflow

Select an existing Workflow and have it's contents display in the Designer window.  This listing is project specific and shows the workflows in use on the project currently selected.

Edit Workflow Name

 Edit the Description of the currently selected workflow.

Show Log

 Shows the log of instances of the currently selected workflow that have been triggered and the Tasks that have been carried out by it.

Templates

Workflows saved as Templates can then be used to duplicate workflows in other projects.  Saved Templates can be seen by people in the same User Company as the user that saved them.

Show Templates

 Show the Templates that have been saved by anyone with the same User Company as you.

Select any number of Templates and Apply to copy the designs into your current project. 

This provides the layout and steps for each as a new workflow in your current project.  You can edit newly created workflows to apply appropriately conditions to the target project.

Save as Template

 Saves the currently selected workflow as a Template that can seen and copied into other projects by anyone with the same User Company as yourself.

Tasks (Nodes)

The steps of a workflow are made up of Tasks, also called Nodes.  These nodes are placed in connection with each other to determine the process flow through the workflow.

There are Tasks for 2 parts of the BIMXtra system:

• DMS Tasks,  carry out actions to documents in the DMS
• Construction Tasks, carry out actions to Forms,
• Common Tasks, are used in both of these areas.

Click on Tasks at the top right of the Workflow Designer to place a new node in the Designer window.  Then click on the Nodes in the window to configure their settings.  

Common Tasks

The Timer is common to both the DMS and Construction Tasks and is the starting Task for all workflows.

Timer

The 'Timer' is a Required task and there must be 1 per workflow, as the first task of each workflow.

It determines when the workflow is triggered and an instance of it's task actions is launched.  The timer starts and is active once a workflow has been started.

Task description: A description for the task which will be seen on the workflow designer and in reporting.

Frequency:

• Occurs: select from one of daily, weekly or monthly 
• Occurs once at: allows the user to select a specific time that the workflow should look for files e.g. 5pm.
• Occurs every: set a number of minutes with a minimum interval of 15mins

Duration: set two dates to enable a workflow to have a start and an end date. This can then be set to run during selected hours i.e. Between 5 and 6pm everyday.

DMS Tasks

Monitor Folder

The 'Monitor Folder' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

Select which folders and file metadata the workflow is going to monitor for.  When the workflow executes it will examine any new files of files that have been modified since the last time the workflow ran.  Any of these files that match the Monitor conditions will be processed further by the workflow.

Monitor Folder nodes created from templates attempt to keep their folder configurations, based on the exact complete folder path saved in the template.  If the target folder does not exist the folder configuration is not set and must be reconfigured for the new project.

Every condition set in the monitor must be matched for a file to be caught by it.  In other words, different selections of the monitor form a logical AND rule. 

Drop down selectors allow for multiple selections and a file only needs to match one of these.  In other words, multiple selections in a single drop down selector form a logical OR rule.

Distribute

The 'Distribute' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

This window is very similar to the standard BIMXtra distribution window, with some amendments to suit the automation and approvals required for workflows.

Issue Detail

Subject: The subject of the transmittal as it appears in notification emails and the documents for review page.

Transmittal purpose/suitability:  Set the purpose code for the transmittal, this will be displayed on the transmittal document, the transmittal email and in documents for review. 

Response required by:  The number of days from distribution by which the recipients have to respond and thus the transmittal is considered 'active'.  Once past the response date without a recipient response, the document is considered 'overdue'.

Expiry:  The number of days from distribution that the document is available for the recipients to access.  Once past the expiry date, the document is no longer available to its recipients to download and/or view in documents for review.

Attach transmittal:  Include a summary .pdf transmittal in all email notifications for the transmittal.

Include Secondary Files:  If the workflow has a Copy node after a Distribution node, this setting can be used to copy the secondary files in the same manner as the manual process.

Details:  A free text field to enter further details for the transmittal.

Distribute Users

Groups:  Select a Distribution Group to show it's users in the window below.

Add users selected in the left hand panel to the recipients list in the right hand panel. These recipients will be included in the counts of active and overdue documents.

 Add users selected in the left hand panel to the CC list in the right hand panel. These recipients will not be included in the counts of active and overdue documents and the transmittal purpose/suitability in documents for review will be set to 'CC'd for information.

 Remove users from the right hand panel they are selected in and thus form the distribution.

Approval Weighting

Approval required is an optional function that enables Approval weighting to be switched on for the each file distribution. 

Approval Weighting is a mechanism by which any Documents can be passed through a formal Approval which ensures any document can be Approved or Rejected through a collective weighting principal. Thereby requiring one or more responses to approve or reject a document for the document to receive an "Official" approved or rejection status. This result is then recorded against each file as required within the Documents folder location and is specific to the documents current revision and suitability status. Please refer to Distribution Status for more information.

Copy Files

The 'Copy Files' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

Copies the workflow files to the select destination folder and sets the Document Purpose of the new file.

Copy Files nodes created from templates attempt to keep their folder configurations, based on the exact complete folder path saved in the template.  If the target folder does not exist the folder configuration is not set and must be reconfigured for the new project.

Send Email

The 'Send Email' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

This option allows bespoke email notifications to be added into the workflow, to provide notifications to users as determined by the workflow creator.

Subject: The subject of the email

Content: The email content you wish to be sent

Select Recipients: The recipients of the email.  In addition to normal project users, you can also select Document Author, Owner and Uploader for the files of the workflow.

Select Distribution Groups:  The Distribution Group to send the email to.

: Include a listing of workflow documents in the the email body.

Create Link

The 'Create Link' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

Creates Static/Dynamic links to the workflow files in the select destination folder.

API Connection

The 'API Connection' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

Create a link to Monitor the Docs For Review queue of a user in another project and to copy any received documents into the current project.  This enables an automatic transfer of Distributed documents from 1 project into another, monitored on individual user accounts.

API URL:       The URL of the API of the Distributing project

API Username/Password:   The user credentials to monitor in the Distributing project, IE the user who will receive the document distributions to monitor

Query Details:    The Documents For Review queue to monitor in the Distributing project

Status Type:       The Documents For Review status to monitor in the Distributing project.  It's these documents that are returned by the API Connect node and passed to the next node when found.

Destination Folder:   The folder in the Receiving project to place any received documents

Additional Information

Further details of the Transmittal that can be saved into DMS Codes in the receiving project.

Transmittal No:    The Transmittal No (from the Distributing project)

Construction Tasks

Currently, BIMXtra supports automatic Form creation via the workflow mechanism.

Create Form

The 'Create Form' is an Optional task and there can be many per workflow.

 Allows the creation of a Construction Form by a workflow and it's assignment to a user.  Users will receive an email notification for each assigned form.

Task Description:   A label for the task node

Available Form Types:  Select the V2 forms that are currently configured for use on the project, that is to be created by the workflow.  V1 forms are not supported for workflow creation.

Assign new forms to:  Select the user to assign the newly created form to.  Each form must be assigned to a user upon creation.

Locations: Optionally the new form can be created with the Location Data set as selected.  This setting enables the newly created form to be assigned to the selected Location fields, with each field being optional.

Connectors

Connectors are used to connect the widgets together and to determine the path for the workflow process. Hover over the widgets and you will see dots available, click a dot then and drag which will start a connector to link to the next widget. Multiple success and failure connectors can be connected to or from a single widget.

Click the connector to name it and determine if the connector is a success e.g. approval/approved with comments or failed i.e. rejection.

Activating and Deactivating Workflows

The above options show the user the current activation and execution status of the current selected workflow.

Start Execution

Start the current selected workflow. As shown (grey scale) indicates the workflow is currently active.  Please note - workflows monitor the system and pick up all CHANGES to documents that happen AFTER the start of their execution.

Stop Execution

Stop the current selected workflow.

Delete

Permanently delete the selected workflow.

Save

Save any changes to the current selected workflow. Please note - Saving workflows, only saves their configurations.  You will also need to stop and start their execution in order to activate any saved changes.

Close

Close the workflow window.

Note: If you setup a custom description for the schema, forms created by the workflow will use the schema name instead. Then, once the form is opened and saved, it will pick up what was set up for the description. 

Reporting & Monitoring

Individual file status

In the document library we have added a ‘Workflow’ column. If the file is in a workflow an icon will appear in this column, the icon also shows a count of how many workflows the file is in.

Clicking on the icon will provide a graphic showing the workflow and highlighting where in the workflow the file is currently sitting.