Scheduled Approval with Reporting Template

This workflow creates a new budget and routes it for approval. It also collects data on how long it takes for the budget to be approved.

How it works

A Find Entry activity locates the Master Budget form.
A Move Entry activity makes a copy of the form and moves the copy to the Proposed Budgets folder.
To name the budget appropriately, the workflow needs to determine the month after the workflow runs. The Date Token Calculator creates a token that will be replaced with the date for the following month.
In the Rename Entry activity, the copied budget is renamed to reflect the budget’s date. To ensure the date is easy to read, the newly created date token is Token Editor to return the month and year in the format: Month name-full year, e.g., May-2018. Note that the Rename Entry activity is configured to rename the copy of the budget, not the starting entry.
The Associate Entries activity ensures that business process details will appear on the new budget as well as on the Master Budget.
A Business Process Step activity provides instructions for the people who will review the proposed budget. This activity also records reporting details that can be seen in the workflow instance details’ Details tab.
A Wait for Entry Change activity waits until the “Workflow Templates: Accounting Processed?” field equals “Yes.”
A Move Entry activity moves the budget to the Approved Budgets folder.

To run this workflow template in the provided test environment

You can run this workflow from the Start Business Process dialog box in the Laserfiche Client or Web Access, or you can run it on a schedule.

To run as a business process

Ensure the workflow’s Business Process Rule is enabled in the Workflow Rule Manager.
In the Laserfiche Windows or web client, select the Master Budget document in the \Workflow Templates - Test Entries\Accounting folder.
Right-click the entry and select Start Business Process.
Choose Template - Schedule Approval with Reporting, and review the description so you understand how the workflow will run.
Find the new budget in the \Workflow Templates - Test Entries\Accounting\Proposed Budgets folder and set the “Workflow Templates: Accounting Processed?” field to Yes to move it to the \Workflow Templates - Test Entries\Accounting\Approved Budgets folder.

To run on a schedule

Ensure the Template - Schedule Approval with Reporting starting rule is enabled by double-clicking the red X next to the rule in the Rule Manager Pane. Once the schedule rule is enabled, the workflow will run four times a year: the first day of February, May, August, and November.

Alternatively, you can test the workflow (bypassing the starting rule) with the Run Current Workflow option in the Workflow Designer. You can run the workflow on the Master Budget document in the \Workflow Templates - Test Entries\Accounting folder.

Ideas to expand this workflow

Once you configure your trustee directory, you can remove the Wait for Entry Change activity and enable the Route Entry to Group activity. Configure the Route Entry to Group activity to route to the group of your choice, and tailor the email message to fit your needs. Additionally, you can add an Update Participant activity to update the participant to the person who satisfied the wait condition. Add this activity inside the Business Process Step activity (right after the Route Entry to Group activity) and use the token: %(RouteEntrytoAccountingGroup_Event User) for the participant’s account name. By updating the participant at this point, the workflow will record reporting data about the person who processed the budget instead of about the Accounting group as a whole.

You can also configure the Business Process Step activity to have a due date (used for reporting purposes only) and participants. Participants will automatically see their instructions in the Business Process Pane in the Laserfiche Client and Web Access. Participants can also receive Business Process Notifications about the Business Process Step activities that are waiting for them to take action.