Overview of workflows

A workflow represents a business process, and is used to map business rules and processes to your organization. This section covers information about Deployment Management workflows.

Workflow components

The basic components of a workflow are as follows:

Component Description
Begin For each workflow, you must explicitly define the first eligible workflow step.
Workflow steps

Events that are linked together to form a complete workflow. The basic types of workflow steps are:

  • Decision steps. Manual activities performed outside of PPM. For example, a user or group of users approves a request.

  • Execution steps. Actions that are automated through PPM. For example, a web page is updated with the results of a test.

  • Condition steps. Logic steps used in complex workflow processing. For example, you can set up a condition step that allows the workflow to proceed only when each workflow step is completed.

  • Subworkflow steps. Multiple workflows steps (the subworkflow) in a workflow. For example, a test workflow step in the main workflow includes a series of tests and approvals.
Transition

The results of a workflow step that must be communicated to another workflow step. A transition occurs after a workflow step is completed.

Examples:

  • The result of a decision step is Approved or Not Approved.

  • The transition for a step labeled Analysis and Design (for a software application) could be Completed or Needs More Work.

Because a single step can have several possible results, you can define multiple outgoing transitions for each workflow step.
Workflow step security Determines who has permission to run or choose a result for a workflow step. For example, you can specify that only the development manager can approve or deny a Design Review decision step.
Notifications

Email alerts sent out at specific workflow steps. For example, when a package reaches an Evaluate decision step in the workflow, an email alert is sent to the development manager.
Close step Ends the workflow. It is an execution step that marks the package as completed.

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Workflow component types

The following table lists component types included in workflows, and the components of each type that you can access from the Workflow Workbench.

Component Type

Icon

Out-of-the-Box Component

Decisions

  • Approval w/ Cancel

  • Approve (All Users)

  • Approve (One User)

  • BTO Approve for Testing

  • BTO Assign

  • BTO Design

  • BTO Develop

  • BTO Evaluate Quality

  • BTO Post Change Evaluation

  • DEM - Approval (One)

  • DEM - Assign

  • DEM - Contact Vendor

  • DEM - Develop

  • DEM - Get Patch

  • DEM - Vendor Response

  • DEM - Y/N

  • Design Review

  • Evaluate

  • MAM Develop

  • PM - In Flight

  • PM - On Hold

  • PMO - Complete

  • Perform Manual Step

  • Production Sanity Testing

  • QA Test

  • Quality Center Sanity Test Execution

  • Quality Center Test Execution

  • Quality Center Test Lab Setup

  • Quality Process Entry

  • Rework Code

  • User Sign Off

Conditions

SYNCH

AND

OR

FIRST LINE

LAST LINE

Executions

  • Close (Immediate failure)

  • Close (Immediate success)

  • Close (Manual success)

  • Check Object Type

  • DEM - Rejected On

  • DEM - SLA Satisfied On

  • DEM - Scope Check

  • DLV - Execution (Immediate)

  • DLV - Execution (Manual)

  • DLV - Execution w/ Reset

  • DLV - Execution w/ Reset/Abort

  • DLV - Exec w/ Partial Reset

  • DEM - Priority Router

  • DEM - Internal/External Check

  • Immediate Execution w/Comment

  • OA - Get Current Instance Mode

  • OA - Set Instance Mode

  • OA - Reset Instance Mode

  • Package Priority

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