Workflow - Associating Task/Global Variable Data to Documents?-1514904136

Good Morning, All:

I'm setting up a Checklist for an order process in the Workflow Manager, in order to move that checklist out of the paper world and allow for true paperless operations for this business process.  See the attached image for a quick look at what I'm talking about.

Once the workflow finishes and the sales order goes into an archive state, it would probably be good to have that checklist be available for reference if someone later has to review that order.

The one thing that, so far, that comes to mind is that I could have a large character cound Field set up for the File Cabinet and use an Arithmetic Function to drop the variables into the Field with some sort of friendly presentation.  It would be a large field, though, and it would not be very nicely presented if my vision is accurate.  Maybe I could have a Form populated, or some other, much cooler, thing?

I guess that I could have the document stay in the Workflow in it's archival state, where the checklists would still be visible, but that seems a little weird as I'd much prefer to have it cycle fully out of the Workflow on completion.

Thanks for looking!

https://www.docuware.com/sites/default/files/forums-images/WFImage.PNG

Chris,

First, I would definitely not recommend leaving the documents in a workflow step as its final resting state: that could lead to significant performance issues as the dataset grows; workflows are not designed to stay running indefinitely. That being said, I'd imagine a Memo field would provide the size and layout you would want for a reference,

Christopher Ure

Software Support Specialist

Support Team GREEN - Americas

Yes, I knew the inherent badness of keeping a document alive in the workflow system long term, and was just in my Ruling Nothing Out brainstorming phase...

I'll experiment with the Memo Field idea and update the ticket when there's news to tell.

Thanks!

I set up a Memo Field to test with, but it doesn't show up in the Fields list in an Assign Data node.  My new Field does show up in an Arithmetic editor window, so the Workflow Editor can see that field.  Probably doesn't show because it's a Memo Field, and seems like a design limitation.

Wonder if I could just create a high character count field to use instead?  Or maybe I'm just doing missing something simple?

What do you think?

Well, memo fields are the only field that will appear in a store dialog as a multiple-line entry box, but it does come with some drawbacks, such as not appearing in some instances as a field. Sounds like you're correct then that the best way would be to use a very wide standard text field.

Christopher Ure

Software Support Specialist

Support Team GREEN - Americas

Seems to me you are trying to keep the list as shown in the picture.  If I were to do this I might use a Keyword field and then in the workflow create keywork variables, populate the vairalbes and then right them to the key work field as one item per row.  This would leave the basic set up the same as for re-displaying it.  Would have to test it out and see what you get.

OK, initial test looks promising.  I've gotten a simple test to work, but it seems to use spaces as the delimiter.  Working out how to have my rows work out right is next...

Here's what I'm seeing:  If I name my workflow with spaces in the name, like WF TO TEST SPACES and have a Keyword variable filled with the system variable for workflow name then have that written to a Keyword Field I still get the separation on spaces and not the whole string together.

What do you think?

I think you have a little problem.  It was designed to allow many words to be entered in one variable and the split to the individual records.
You can try enclosing it in quotes, but I have a feeling that it may not work either. I will do some testing and come back to you. What version of DocuWare?
 

Also, consider this. The order of the keywords, when displayed back will not neccessarily be in the order that you enter them. To preserver the order, you may have to pre-fix each string with a number:

1 - Some Task - Y
2 - Some other Task - N

etc.

Phil Robson
Senior Director Support - Americas

Chris, I ran into these issues at one point as well.  Be sure the Workflow variable you create is a Keyword Type Variable and the Cabinet Index field you populate it with is a Keyword field as well.  If not and one of them is a text field, it will give you strange behavior as you are seeing.

Thanks for taking a look, Phil. 

I'm noticing the ordering behavior, too.  Interesting is that if I have a Keyword Variable filled with a Fixed Entry like 'TEST WITH SPACES' and then pass that off to a Keyword Field it still busts out on spaces.

Can I pass the variables into a Form, or can a Form be edited once it's in DocuWare?  Seems like the old form engine could be set for the form to be active after it was in DocuWare, but that may no longer be the case...

Ok, to get the complete string in to a single keyword entry you need to enclose the string in single quotes. Therefore you need to use an arithmetical expression.
To enter Barney Rubble as one string put 'Barney Rubble' in the expession field.
I am working on the correct syntax to enclose a variable in the quotes and have it entered as a complete string.

A form once submitted is a PDF and has no editable fields, and at the moment, there is no way to use a variable outside a workflow.

Phil Robson
Senior Director Support - Americas

Ha!  I'd written in an Arithmetic expression with single quotes earlier and ditched it before giving it a shot...  I'll play around with that and see if I can get the Variable bit working, too.  If I get it I'll post an update...

Well I can get it to work if I assign the value as a fixed string in the single quotes. But if I assign it in an arithmentic expression I get an error. So at the moment I'm working on it.

Phil

This seems to work:

"'WORKFLOW NAME:  WF_WORKFLOW_NAME'"

Delivers to me this:

WORKFLOW NAME: WF TEST FOR SPACE HANDLING and this is the desired string. 

So, I now have one of the major building blocks for rendering my checklist.

Next is the order of things.  If I number my entries they will appear in numerical order?  Testing that now...

Order seems to work, and it looks like I can use a single Arithmetic expression to built my list, too, instead of creating a ton of data/field entries.  The below loads into my Keyword field nicely:

"'1. WORKFLOW NAME:  WF_WORKFLOW_NAME'" & "'2. USER: WF_TASK_USER'"

These 3 keyword sets were assigned in different ways. As you can see the numbers keep them in the order entered.

Phil

https://www.docuware.com/sites/default/files/forums-images/WFKW.png

Well, I think I have a system that does the job, AND it won't look terrible, either.  Do you have anything else to throw in on this one before we move on?  Thanks, Phil!