Task manager problem-1525480299

Hey all,

EDIT: I realized the weekend was going to be long unless I tried something, so I went ahead and uninstalled Workflow Engine server. Now notifications work consistently without throwing errors. Can anyone speak to how I even know Task Manager is working, though?

We had a trial of Workflow Manager a while back, and it expired. Now we have a trial of Task Manager (just started today).

I went and made a notification the same as I had in Workflow Manager. Saves fine. I trigger the event (a new document in a test cabinet), and I get no notification. I check the logs for on the server Workflow Engine and it says:

"Workflow engine license is missing or expired for organization with guid <guid>"

Of course it is. So, I forcibly stop the Workflow Engine service, try again, and I get my notification. In other words, DocuWare still thinks Workflow Manager is calling the shots on notification, but it can't perform them because our license is expired.

How can I put Task Manager in charge to test it out? Do I just need to uninstall Workflow Engine Server entirely? Will that do the trick? Once done, how can I tell if I have Task Manager capability? Will the interface look different (it doesn't so far). Even with Workflow Engine Server stopped, I don't see a "Tasks" tab or anything in the web client. How does one know Task Manager is available, and where does one do stuff beyond setting up notifications? (Or is that all Task Manager does -- maybe we do need Workflow Manager...)

Any help would be appreciated... We have 30 days on this Task Manager trial, but I think we can figure out if it meets our needs way sooner if I can just get it working correctly...

Thanks,

Joe Kaufman

Joe,

The Task Manager is not much more than Lists (formerly tasklists). Without Task Manager License you do not get Lists available to users. Though very simple easy to configure, lists in conjustion with stamps can be built into very powerful workflows, without a need for Workflow Manager Licesne.

So if you see LISTS tab in Web Client, it means you Task Manager License is working,

Josef,

Thanks for the response. I have no "Lists" tab, just trays and searches.  :\

But notifications work, and I was under the impression we needed at least Task manager for those to work (we could not create one before we trialed Workflow Manager).

Any thoughts on why I cannot see Lists? Where does one set up what would show on the list? In other words, what else is in Configuration with Task Manager (beyond notifications), and why don't I see anything new?

Thanks,

Joe Kaufman

Joe,

lists are created and assigned in Docuware Configuration: FileCabinet - Dialogs - Lists. Pretty much intuitive from there. In Cloud Solution only GUI selection filter allowed, but for on-premise system SQL statements may be used. AFter a list is configured and assigned to a user, the LISTS tab should appear in the user's webclient

As far as licensing goes, it is a bit confusing: though E-mailNotifications & TaskManager are sold under single code, they are listed as separate items in your license view (in Docuware Administrator under Licenses).

Hope this helps 

You saved me again, Josef! I created a test List and refreshed the web client and there it was. Simple. I see how creating lists and result dialogs could get cumbersome if we get advanced (which is what the regional sales person told us), but we'll kick the tires and see if we can make this work!

We were careful to demo Workflow first, wait till it expired, then try Task Manager so we for sure we knew which module we were tapping into. Workflow Engine is completely uninstalled now, so we know whatever we can construct is pure Task manager, and we will see if it meets our needs.

Thanks again!

Joe Kaufman

Keep in mind that if you are doing any changes to the DW Database directly and not through a DW process that the Task Lists will not update.  It is a requirement that changes run throught the Content and Workflow Server processes to allow the Task List triggers to happen.

Craig, thanks for mentioning that! These workflows should always be happening through the web client or, at most, the Platform SDK, both of which should trigger a rebuild of the task list (dynamically).

Of course, refreshing the web page would also get any changes, no matter how they got in the data, yes? But we actually do not do any writing of any data directly to the database -- all that access is read-only. If we did manual changes directly we would have no way of making the meta-data XML file stay in sync with the header data, so I gave up on that a while back. We do all write operations via the Platform Service.

Thanks!

Joe Kaufman

Hey Joe,

DW 7 seems to not use the XML files anymore and metadata is always stored in the database.

Simon,

That seems like sort of a step back, though I suppose at some point you have to trust your SQL Server backups. It was sort of nice to know all documents were still just plain old files in the file system with meta-data right beside them. Still, should increase performace of the system overall if they don't need to worry about generating the XML file every time a document changes...

This definitely makes simple changes (like UPDATEs) more feasible. Just be sure you use UTC timestamps on any date/time system fields like last modification time!

Thanks,

Joe Kaufman