This guide describes all of the screens in the WorkflowGen User Portal and provides a complete list of related operating rules. It's an important resource in understanding how the software behaves under various situations. The guide also includes a list of possible errors along with their explanations.

New request screen

This screen lets you view all the processes you have access to and launch new requests.

To add a process to the My favorites list on your Dashboard, click the star outline. You can then open the process from either the My favorites or New request lists on your Dashboard. To remove a process from your favorites, click the star again.

Search filter

Click on the right-hand side of the row to open a pop-up help window.

You can sort the list ascending or descending by any of the elements by clicking on the corresponding column header.

When you launch a new request, a new left menu appears.

The WorkflowGen User Portal is a web application that allows users to:

• Launch and follow up on requests

• Perform and follow up on actions

• Assign actions

• Perform searches on actions and requests

• Save searches as custom views, and place the saved views on the home page as floating dashboard panels if desired

• Delegate actions

• Generate and view analytics

• Access the Administration Module (if permitted)

Access to the User Portal is available through the URL http://[yourwebsite]/wfgen/default.aspx.

According to the authentication method chosen by the WorkflowGen Administrators, you may have to specify a username and a password when you log in to WorkflowGen. For Windows users, these are typically the same as those used to log in to Windows.

Your Administrator can set a maximum number of failed connection attempts due to an incorrect password, after which the account will be locked. If this happens, you will be redirected to a password reset page, where you will be prompted to enter an email address to which an email will be sent with a link to reset your password.

You can also change your password at any time by clicking the user icon in the top left of the Dashboard, which opens the user settings panel where you can set a new password.

If you've forgotten your password, you can access the password reset page via the URL http://[yourwebsite]/wfgen/forgotpassword.aspx.

To select a language and, if desired, a language culture, click the circular user icon at the top left of the Dashboard to open the user settings panel.

The language culture (indicated by country) shown beside the language defines the regional settings used in WorkflowGen, in particular when displaying dates and numerical values.

• English (United Kingdom) corresponds to English with United Kingdom regional settings (date format dd/mm/yyyy).

• English (United States) corresponds to English with United States regional settings (date format m/d/yyyy).

You can select from the following list of languages:

• English (Australia)

• English (Canada)

• English (United Kingdom)

The User Portal's main screens are accessible from the Dashboard left menu.

In the User Portal, access to information is personalized based on users’ profiles and roles in processes.

You can switch from the default multi-process mode to single-process mode by selecting a process from drop-down list at the top left of the WorkflowGen application banner.

The list is filtered based on the user’s WorkflowGen profile and process role.

In all single-process screens, the associated process data are displayed to the right of the request number and creation date columns, as shown in the screenshot below. The process data that are displayed are determined by the visibility and security options set within the process design in the Administration Module.

You can always search for workflows using the request number (Request #). However, the Portal common process data feature also allows you to display process data that have the same name and data type, such as first or last name, depending on the parameters that have been set in the Administration Module.

In delegation mode, the user plays the role of another user on delegated process participants. If there's an active delegation defined for you, a user list is displayed in the the top right corner of the Dashboard. You can switch from one user to another using this drop-down list, or using the Act as drop-down list in the General section on the user settings panel. The process list is filtered by the process for which the user has a delegation assigned by the selected user.

Clicking the name of a user displays their , which contains information defined in their user profile.

This gives access to the search function for a user’s own requests and actions. If the user is given the role of requester for a process, access is given to the following functions:

• New request

• Current requests

If the user is an actor in a process, access is given to the following functions:

• Actions to do

• Team actions to do

• Actions to assign as coordinator to someone

This gives access to follow-up functions for the requests of the process the user manages.

This gives access to follow-up functions for all processes.

Dashboard screen

This Dashboard displays all of the options available to you based on your profile. Custom links can be made available as extra options on the Dashboard.

Personalized Dashboard

The Dashboard displays the date of your last visit along with your first and last names. The date and time are displayed according to your current time zone.

User settings panel

The user settings panel is accessed by clicking the user icon in the top left corner of the Dashboard. This panel lets you set your language and time zone and change your password.

Single-process home page

By selecting a process name from the drop-down list at the top left of the banner, the Dashboard will display the information for this process only.

Quick view

If the Quick view feature has been enabled in the Administration Module, clicking the request icon to the left of the process name opens a pop-up window that displays the process form, including any predetermined process data.

You can fill in and submit information, print the form by clicking the printer icon, navigate to the previous or next request’s Quick view (if applicable) by using the arrows, close the Quick view by clicking the icon, and depending on the status of the process and user security settings, delete or cancel the request.

If you've added processes and/or views to your favorites list, the My favorites section will appear as the top section of your Dashboard, with a list from which you can launch these processes or open these views.

To add or remove a process or view to your favorites list, hover the mouse over the name of the process or view in the New request or My views list and click the star outline on the right-hand side. (You can also remove favorites directly in the My favorites list).

Click New request to display the list of requests that you can launch. New requests can be grouped by category.

To add or remove a process to your favorites list, click the star outline. Only Active status processes can be added to favorites.

Alternately, the system configuration within the Administration Module allows for the display of process and action descriptions instead of code names.

Click My views to display your customized saved views.

To add or remove a view to your favorites list, click the star outline.

You can display your saved views as floating dashboard panels on your home page. For instructions on how to do this, see the section below.

This is the list of current requests of which you are the requester.

This is the list of actions for you to do.

This is the list of team actions.

Since they're in self-service mode, these actions aren't assigned to a single person, so they can be handled by any user associated with the action participant.

This is the list of actions for the user to assign. This may apply under the following assignment methods:

• A participant with a coordinator

• A manual assignment by the action initiator

• A person (who's not a coordinator) who handles a previous action

This opens the Search screen. For information on how to use it, see the section.

You can access this list of current and overdue requests in progress if you're a process manager or a process supervisor (according to the processes you manage).

If you're an administrator, you can access the list of current requests or overdue requests for all processes. You can save the current view of the list of requests.

You can access this list of current or overdue actions if you're a process manager or a process supervisor (according to the processes you manage). If you're an administrator, you can access the list of current or overdue actions for all of the processes. You can save the current view of the list of actions.

You can add your saved views to your Dashboard as customizable floating pop-up panels you can arrange according to your needs. These will remain on your Dashboard, refreshing automatically each time you return to it, though you can refresh panels manually by clicking in the top right.

To open a pop-up panel, click to the left of the name of a saved view (see ). You can then place it on your home page and resize it as needed.

You can launch an action’s form directly from a pop-up panel. Completing actions this way will refresh the view displayed in the pop-up panel instead of redirecting you to the page configured to display when completing an action (such as the follow-up form or the homepage).

Pop-up panels are also useful with the Quick approval feature as shown in the screenshot below, since this gives you immediate access to your list of validation actions, letting you handle them directly in the dashboard panel using the buttons (see for more information).

While the views in pop-up panels will always refresh when you return to your Dashboard, you can manually refresh the pop-up panels by clicking in the top right.

If your WorkflowGen Administrator has enabled the auto refresh feature, the icon will appear, and the panels will refresh according to the preset interval. You can disable and re-enable auto refresh by clicking the icon.

User calling card

Overview

Help is available for processes and actions within processes by clicking next to the process descriptions, or by clicking the Help button in the headers of request or action information forms.

When selecting help at the process level, the help text will describe the purpose of the overall process. Selecting help for a given action in the process will display help for that particular action, rather than for the entire process.

Help screen

The contents of the Help screen are defined by the process designer and will appear as a blank window unless it has been created. The Diagram screen displays the graphical view of the process to authorized participants.

Help form

Default

Notifications are sent as described below.

When an action is assigned

• To a person: to the corresponding user

• Self-service: to all users associated with the participant, or to a subset of the participant user list, depending on the process design

• Through the coordinator: to the coordinator only

• To the requester

• To the requester

• To the user assigned to the action

• To the user who has assigned the action to a person, unless it is the current user

• To the user who assigned the person

• To the user assigned to the action

• When the action has to be performed

• When the action is overdue

• Prior to when an action is overdue

• The requester

• The action assignee

• Some free-form email addresses

This page displays actions to do and actions closed by the user.

This page displays the actions for the user to assign or actions already assigned.

This page displays your team actions to do and the team actions you've closed. These are actions that have been defined with the Self-service assignment method.

Requests screen

This page displays ongoing and closed requests launched by the user.

Search filter

1. For requests to be completed.

2. For closed requests.

You can sort the list ascending or descending by any of the elements by clicking the corresponding column header.

This screen displays participant delegations on active or archived processes. Delegations cannot be added to processes that are under construction or in test.

A user can associate a delegatee with each process participant role displayed in this list. Delegations can be done for an unlimited period of time (if no date range is entered) or for a specific period of time (if a date range is entered).

Two types of delegations are possible: a global delegation of all the user’s roles to a person by selecting All processes and All participants, or a delegation on a role-by-role basis by selecting individual delegatees for each process participant role. Note that a role-based delegation can override the global delegation for that specific role and vice-versa.

This page displays all of the views you've saved.

To add a view to the My favorites list on the Dashboard, click the star outline. You can then open the view from either the My favorites or My views expandable lists. To remove a view from your favorites, click the star again.

Action information form screen

Click the request number or the description in the actions list, or click in the request form left menu, to open the action information form.

Action information

* Displayed only if the action was cancelled by the system due to an action execution error.

A slide-out panel on the right allows the participants of the request to post free-form comments.

User operations and access permissions are the same as in the .

An action assigned in Self-service mode can be accepted without being launched if it has not already started and if the user is part of the team. In this case, the action will move from the team list to the user’s to-do list.

If the user is the requester, a current and unassigned action can be assigned by the Manual by the coordinator assignment method.

If the user is the action initiator, a current and unassigned action can be assigned by the Manual by the action initiator assignment method.

If the user is the action initiator, a current and unassigned action can be assigned in case of error assignment by the Automatic to the person assignment method.

The list of users that can be assigned can be empty if the number of users exceeds the limit (this can be changed in the Administration Module). In this case, you have to filter the list. The filter is applied to last names, first names, and user names.

If the user is the process manager, a process supervisor, or a WorkflowGen administrator, the action can be reassigned.

If the user is the process coordinator and the action assignment method is performed manually by the coordinator, the action can be reassigned.

The user can cancel the assignment of an action if the action was assigned in Self-service mode.

The user can also cancel the assignment of an action if the action was assigned to him or her by the initiator.

Managers (administrators, process managers, and process supervisors) can cancel the assignment of a self-service action in Manager mode.

An action with the Self-service assignment method can be launched by a participant if the action has not been accepted or assigned.

An action that has not been started and whose assignment method is Self-service can be launched by a participant of the process if they have accepted it initially.

A running action can be cancelled if the user is the action assignee, or if the user is a process manager, a process supervisor, or a WorkflowGen administrator, and if an Action cancellation or Default exception transition has been defined by the process designer in the process for this action.

A manual action has to be explicitly closed by the user assigned to the action, or by a process manager, a process supervisor, or a WorkflowGen administrator.

In all other cases, the system closes the action automatically according to its type:

• An action using an application is automatically closed when the application sends the result back to WorkflowGen.

• An embedded sub-process action is automatically closed when the sub-request has been closed.

• An independent sub-process action is automatically closed when the sub-request has been launched.

You can restart a system action that is in time out by clicking the Restart action button. This option is only available to administrators and process managers in administration mode, and does not support asynchronous (e.g. Web Proc Async) or aborted system actions.

The default timeout delay is 600 seconds (10 minutes). This is configured in the EngineServiceSystemActivitiesTimeOut parameter; see the table in the appendix in the .

Click the request number or the description in the requests list, or click in the request form left menu, to display the request information form.

Search screen

The Search screen allows searches to be conducted on user-accessible requests and actions. The search criteria can be saved as a view so that the user can quickly display the search results without having to repeatedly fill out the search form (see Save as view for more information).

By default, only requests initiated by the user and actions performed by the user will be listed in the search. This applies to all user types, including process supervisors, managers, and administrators.

In Supervisor mode, more search options are available, and the search will be performed for all activities of the processes the user supervises (see the Supervisor mode section below for more information).

By checking Customizable report (under Advanced view in the Display section), the search results will be displayed in a customizable format, which gives the user control of how the results are organized.

By checking Display approval buttons, Quick approval buttons will appear next to validation actions if Quick approval has been enabled. This option is only available when searching in User mode.

Click Requests to search requests or Actions to search actions. The search form is in User mode by default and includes the following search filters:

1. Available when filtering by process or in single-process search mode.

2. Available when filtering by process or in single-process search mode; available in multi-process mode if common process data has been set up by your WorkflowGen Administrator.

3. Available when filtering in single-process mode.

In Supervisor mode, the following additional search filters are available:

The current search results can be saved as a view by clicking the Save as view button displayed above the search results. See the section for information on how to use views, and the section to find out how to turn saved views into pop-up panels on your Dashboard.

The Analytics screen allows users to generate detailed reports of all the ongoing and closed requests. Users can obtain the following categories of reports:

• Activity analytics that provide views of the various requests and actions in real time or during a specified time period

• Data analytics that detail the data information per process with filtering capabilities

Analytics settings (such as the number of items to display in a report) are configured in the Analytics

Overview

With Advanced view you can view search results in a customizable format. This allows you to view targeted information by filtering and organizing the information to suit your needs. You can also save views, use the Quick approval feature to validate requests, and create and customize charts.

You can access it by clicking the Advanced view button located at the top right of the Search results screen.

Advanced view has several dynamic features:

• Adjust column width

• Group by column

• Sort by column

• Edit columns

• Insert footer information

• Export search results

• Save as view

• Quick approval

• Charts

To adjust the column width, place the cursor in between two columns at the header level until the bi-directional arrow appears, then slide left or right to adjust the column size.

To group the search results by the data in a particular column, drag and drop a column header onto the bar directly above the column headers. You can also hover the mouse over the column header, then click the pencil icon that appears on the right and choose Group by this column from the drop-down panel.

The search results will now be grouped by the data in that column.

You can continue to do this for multiple columns, according to how you want to group the information.

To ungroup a column, click the x next to the column name in the header.

To sort the search results in ascending or descending order, you can either click a column header, or hover the mouse over a header and click the pencil icon on the right side of the column header to open a drop-down panel where you can then choose to add or remove a sort. A triangle will appear in the header of the column by which the results have been sorted; click it to reverse the sort order.

To filter by column, hover over a column header and click the pencil icon that appears on the right to open a drop-down panel. In the Show rows where section, you can filter by combinations of keywords or number configurations, depending on whether you're filtering text or numeric information.

To edit a column, click the Columns button above the search results grid. Here, you can hide a column by unchecking its heading, create a new column, or edit existing column information.

You can create a new column by clicking the New column button. This opens a new window that lets you fill in new information or edit existing information about a column.

You can enter or edit column information by using either the Formula tab or the JavaScript tab.

The Formula tab allows you to easily enter column information by clicking inside the Expression editor and entering information or selecting from the list of existing columns displayed.

Text written here must be entered either within quotation marks (" ") or correspond to a column name. Text strings are displayed in yellow and columns are as orange text with an orange border. Invalid text will appear in white underlined in red, indicating an error.

You can also select the format of the information that you enter by clicking the Format button. The default setting is Automatic, which detects the format of the information being entered (numeric, text, date, etc.). You can also choose from a number of other format selections. Hovering the mouse over any of the format selections displays several options, including a Custom option.

The JavaScript tab allows you to write JavaScript functions in order to calculate the values of your custom columns.

You can add information in the footer of your column if that column contains numerical values (for example, list prices in dollars or another currency).

Hover the mouse over the column footer, then click it to open the Footer information window. From this window you can add various types of information, such as average, minimum and maximum values, etc.

When you check Groups in the Footer information window, the results will appear next to the grouped column data in the Search results list.

You can export your search results by clicking the Export button located above the column grid. This allows you to export the search data as a downloadable file in a number of formats (Excel 2007 (XLSX), Excel (XLS), XML, CVS, HTML, JSON, TSV), or inside the Copy the following text box, where you can copy the content to another location by clicking the Show data button (not supported by XLSX format).

Once you've organized the search data in a way that is most convenient to you, you might want to save this view for future reference. To do this, click the Save as view link located above the column grid. This displays a new window that allows you to create a new view or replace an existing one. You can also create a link to this view from your homepage, and share this view with other participants. This option is also available in Standard view.

In the search results list, validation actions for which Quick approval has been enabled will display buttons (such as Yes, No, or Modify, as defined in the process form) that let you easily and quickly handle multiple validation requests at once. (If you have actions other than validations, you can group the list by types of action by dragging the Action column header into the blue header bar; this way, all of your validation actions will appear together.)

Checking the Multi-selection box lets you select the same approval answer for all actions of the same process by clicking a single approval button. You can also do this without enabling this option by holding down the Alt key and clicking a single button. However, enabling this setting does not automatically submit any actions, so you still have to click the Submit button to complete the actions.

Once you've finished handling validation actions, click Submit. Click Reset to undo your selections (and delete your comments, if applicable).

You can also save this list as a view, which you can then access in the My views section on your Dashboard without having to perform a new search.

To take full advantage of the Quick approval feature, you can then display the saved view as a pop-up panel on your Dashboard (see ). Whenever you return to or reload your Dashboard, the list will refresh automatically, and you can handle your approvals directly in the pop-up panel using the buttons.

You can create charts (column, bar, line, pie) from Advanced view reports, save them as views, and share them with other users. You can also save the chart as a view and place it on your home page dashboard (see ).

Click the Chart button above the search results grid, then choose the type of chart and the value by which to calculate the chart (e.g. count, average, sum). Only the available options will be displayed in the drop-down menus.

If custom chart editing has been enabled in the Administration Module, the chart panel will prompt you to choose either Standard or Custom. (See below for information on how to use custom charts.)

Click the Chart button above the search results grid to open a panel with options to customize a standard chart (click Custom to edit a custom chart). Only the options available for the type of chart you’ve chosen will be displayed. For example, the Show percentage option is only available for pie charts.

The Custom charts feature lets you create customized charts with your data grid using JavaScript. You can create a chart with any chart library.

Enter your JavaScript code using the following variables:

• chartContainer: Draw your chart onto this div object.

• grid.getGroups(): This function returns a JSON containing a simplified version of the grid data. The JSON is sorted by group name and contains the following values:

For samples of custom chart JavaScript code, see the article in the .