Wednesday, February 07, 2007

How flexible is Alfresco workflow?

Alfresco includes two types of workflows out of the box. One is the Simple Workflow which is content-oriented and the other one is the Advanced Workflow which is task-oriented.

The simple workflow features of Alfresco enables you to define a simple approve- reject workflow for your documents. The email templates and notification business rules are helpful to notify all the concerned people involved in the workflow process. You can also implement complex workflows by chaining the spaces with multiple approve and reject steps.

The complex task-oriented workflow requirements can be handled by Advanced Workflow features. You can create a task, attach multiple documents and send it to multiple people for review. Using the dashboard views, you can view all the tasks assigned to you and all the tasks you have assigned to others. You can track the tasks to closure using the web client user interface.

There is a dedicated Chapter in the book titled "Chapter 9. Workflow", which explains you the concepts such as :

· Enable simple workflow on documents
· Create email templates and set email notifications
· Extend workflow with multiple approval steps
· Implement a complex workflow scenario for digital asset management
· Start an advanced workflow from the list of predefined workflows
· Assign priority, due date, reviewer, and documents to the workflow
· Take ownership of a task
· Reassign a task
· Change the workflow state
· List tasks assigned to you and tasks completed by you
· Cancel or abort the workflows you have started
· Create your own custom advanced workflow


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5 comments:

Eranga said...

Hello,

I want to create a simple custom workflow. This workflow should pass some custom parameters as well. Since I am new to Alfresco can you suggest me a good reference.

I already referred alfresco book and http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/WorkflowAdministration

But I culdn't find the correct way to display and pass custom parameters.

Eranga said...

I got the answer from http://forums.alfresco.com/viewtopic.php?t=5078

Thanks

Unknown said...

Hi, may be you know, how can i create, deploy workflow(process definition and task model - jBPM) from API not from native Alfresco web UI?

Anonymous said...

Eranga,

Do you have any Idea where do we find the deploy tab in alfresco?.

from wiki i got the below details for workflow, but confused about the deployment .

JBoss jBPM Process Designer allows a process definition to be saved to a process archive file or deployed directly to an existing server. Alfresco has provided support to allow deployment directly to Alfresco.

Ensure the Alfresco Server is up and running
From the Deployment Tab enter:
Server Name = machine name where Alfresco is installed
Server Port = port number assigned to Alfresco (default: 8080)
Server Deployer = /alfresco/jbpm/deployprocess
Press Test Connection...
If all OK, press Deploy Process Archive...

Sexyladyme26 said...

Business users and process experts with no programming experience can design and run workflows.


alfresco workflow