Workflows

Introduction

Workflows provide a structured method for storing a sequence of states over which the a document will progress. Workflows keep track how a document has been processed so far.

Workflows work by storing a series of states to help you know the “status” of a document. To move a workflow from one state to another, transitions are used.

Transitions connect two different states and help provide context to know which state is possible to transition to, from a previous state. Transitions provide and order for the sequence of possible states changes.

Transitions can be executed manually by users if they have the required access level as configure by the system administrator.

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Example workflow. Circles represent states, rectangles represent transitions.

Workflows in Mayan EDMS are implemented as finite state machines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine).

Workflows are mainly used to represent business processes. But they can also be used an automation system to customized Mayan EDMS and have it perform some tasks automatically.

Automation

Besides being able to be executed manually by users, transitions can also be programmed execute automatically based on system events. This is called in Mayan EDMS transition triggering and is one of the tools available to automate business processes.

For example:

  • Move a document from a “scanned” state to a “billed” state when a tag is attached to the document.

  • Move a document from a “uploaded” state to a “OCR ready” state when the OCR engine finishes processing the document.

The other tool provided for process automation is being able to execute an action when a workflow state is reached or leaved. These are called state events.

Some examples of state actions currently provided are:

  • Attach a tag to a document

  • Remove a tag from a document

  • Do an HTTP POST request to an external IP address

  • Edit the label or the description of a document.

Other time more state actions are being added. Some state actions like the one that creates an HTTP POST request allow Mayan EDMS to trigger processes in external systems based on the state of a document. One example of this is triggering the billing process of an accounting system when an invoice is scanned in Mayan EDMS.

Workflow state actions and transitions triggers are new features and are still evolving.

Workflows allow translating business logic into a series of states. With the addition of state actions and transition triggers, the workflows in Mayan EDMS are no longer just informative but can be part of your actual business automation process.

Implementation

Internally, workflows are implemented as a finite state machines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine). To make them simpler to use, workflow have been designed so that only one state can be the current active state for a workflow being executed. Another design decision is that every workflow needs at least one state marked as the initial state.

Visualizations

The graphical representation of a workflow is similar to a flowchart. The states are represented with circles. The transitions are represented with arrows. Circle with a double border represent the initial state of the workflow.

To view the graphical representations of workflow use Preview button of the workflow in the setup view.