Creating Workflows with the Wizard

Users such as purchasing managers or executives can use the New Workflow Wizard to quickly create workflows (event handlers and actions) for some basic notification scenarios. For example, a purchasing manager can build a workflow to "Notify me when a PO line is created for more than $1000."

As you make simple choices in the wizard, behind the scenes the system is creating event handler and event actions metadata that can later be viewed or edited in the standard Application Event System (AES) forms.

Building a Workflow

To build a simple notification workflow:

1. On the first page of the New Workflow Wizard, specify one of these options:
   • Notify Me When: Select this option to receive a notification in your Factory Track Inbox when the change you specify in the following pages is made to the system
   • Notify You When: Select this option if the person who makes the specified change should receive a notification in their Factory Track Inbox.
   • Build from Scratch: Select this option and click Finish to exit the workbench and use the standard AES forms to build the workflow.
2. Select Customize Resulting Workflow if you want to open the event handler you created in the standard AES forms when you finish building the workflow through the wizard. This option is enabled only if you selected one of the Notify options.
3. Click Next. On the second page of the wizard, specify these options:
   • Specify a description of the workflow. You can change the description on later pages.
   • Specify the IDO and/or form that you want the system to track.  You must identify the IDO. In addition, you can further restrict the triggering condition by specifying the form where the changes are made. See the Examples below.

     Note: If you select a form name and then click in the IDO field, the IDO is automatically filled in (this can be helpful if you know the form but not the IDO). If you specify an IDO name, and you want the workflow to apply to all forms that use that IDO, you can either leave the Form Name field blank or select All Forms. If you want the workflow to apply to all IDOs associated with the specified form, select All IDOs.

   • Specify the type of operation on that IDO (Additions, Changes, or Deletions) that will trigger the notification.
4. Click Next. On the third page of the wizard, specify these options:
   • Specify All Rows to trigger the notification on any change to the IDO, or select Where and specify property and value filter criteria if you only want a notification triggered when the change is for a row that matches the filter criteria.
   • To specify multiple filter clauses, specify whether to use And or Or to join the new clause with the preceding one, and click Add.
   • For each clause, you can specify one of these options:
     • Property, operator, and value
     • Property, operator, and another property, with an optional date-time adjustment
     • Property, operator, and the date/time when the workflow runs, with an optional adjustment.

   See the Examples below.

5. Click Finish to complete the workflow. (The Next button on this page is reserved for future use.) If you selected Customize Resulting Workflow, the Event Handlers form is launched for this workflow's event handler.

Example 1: PO Line Cost Greater than $1000

To create a workflow that sends a notification to your Inbox when a new purchase order line is added where the cost is more than $1000:

1. In the first page of the New Workflow Wizard, select Notify Me When.
2. In the second page of the wizard, specify the description as Notify me when new PO line cost is > $1000.
3. For Apply To, select the PurchaseOrderLines form and click in the IDO field to display the appropriate IDO (SLPoItems) and caption (Purchase Order Items).
4. For What to Track, specify Additions.
5. In the third page, specify the filter criteria:
   • Select Where. The caption for the IDO you selected on the previous page is displayed (Purchase Order Items).
   • Select the appropriate property, DerExtItemCostConv, from the drop-down list. Note that the field label associated with the property is displayed in the drop-down list where possible, to help you find the property you want.  In this case, DerExtItemCostConv has the field label Extended Cost, which is what you want to compare to your maximum amount.
   • Specify the operator, in this case "greater than" ( > ).
   • Specify the value to compare to, in this case 1000. Do not specify separators or currency symbols.
   • Click Add This Clause to add your filter to the workflow.
6. Click Finish to complete the workflow.
7. To test the workflow, ask another user to add a new PO line for more than $1000. You should receive a notification in your Inbox.

Example 2: PO Line Promise Date Later Than Due Date

To create a workflow that sends a notification to your Inbox when a PO line change occurs and the Promise Date is later than the Due Date:

1. Follow steps 1-3 from the first example.
2. For What to Track, specify Changes.
3. In the third page, specify the filter criteria:
   • Select Where. The caption for the IDO you selected on the previous page is displayed (Purchase Order Items).
   • Select the appropriate property, PromiseDate, from the drop-down list.
   • Specify the operator, in this case Is after.
   • Specify the other property to compare to, in this case PurchaseOrderItems.DueDate.
   • Click Add This Clause to add your filter to the workflow.
4. Click Finish to complete the workflow.
5. Test the workflow.

Viewing Your Finished Workflows

After you finish creating your workflow, you can view it in the My Workflows form.  If you want to further customize a workflow, you can use the editors on the Event Handlers form.

Event Handlers cannot be deleted. You can, however, edit the Event Handler and mark it as Obsolete.

Related Topics

Creating Event Handlers