Document Workflow

Nuxeo EP 5 provides a workflow engine that combines the agility of a document-based workflow and the strength of an activity-based one. The Nuxeo EP 5 workflow engine is especially designed to power business processes automation related to document management.

The key features of the workflow engine are:

• Deeply integrated with Nuxeo Core and all Nuxeo EP 5 components
• Combines the agility of a document-based workflow and the strength of a BPM engine
• Different workflow schemas may be applied on a single document at the same time
• Synchronization: a document can synchronize its status with other documents

Each process is defined by a workflow schema. The schema specifies the “path” that the document will follow during the process. A schema is composed of states and transitions.

Workflow states represent the document status in the processes (e.g., pending, validated, locked, work in progress, etc.). A workflow state also defines the access rights related to the document (for each user) and the parameters related to the lifecycle of the document (e.g., check-in, check-out, version update, etc.).

Transitions allow switching from a workflow state to another and applying actions (automatic or manual) on a document.

Stacks represent a set of users, ordered or not, or tasks attached to a workflow state of a document. Stacks may be modified anytime (e.g. by adding or deleting a user to the process). Nuxeo EP 5 provides two types of stacks: ordered stacks and non-ordered stacks.

• An ordered stack allows the definition of a chain or a hierarchy of several users who have an action to perform on a document in a workflow state. An ordered stack can also define a whole set of tasks which has to be done on the document in a workflow state,
• A non-ordered stack allows the definition of a set of tasks which have to be performed on the document in a non-hierarchical way.

Stacks represent a very agile and strong way to create workflow schemas when the number of users or their identity is not known in advance.

Here are some examples of real use cases of stacks:

• Hierarchical validation (ordered stack)
• Document assignment
• Technical review
• Group approval (non-ordered stack)

Substitutes are users who can act instead of other users on the workflow (when the main user is on vacation for example). Users can define substitutes in a global way or for a specific process. The use of substitutes enables a simple management of the assignment process.

Each document of a workplace with a specific workflow state can be submitted for publishing into a section.A user interface presents all of the sections available (a user can only see the sections for which he is declared as a reader) where publishing is possible. When the document is submitted, its workflow state is updated and switched from its original state to pending. Then section managers may access the document and can:

• Accept the document: the document is published in the section and becomes accessible to all its readers,
• Reject the document: the document is not published and an email is sent to the author with the reason that the section manager gave for their rejection.

The same document may be submitted in several sections and be accepted in one while being rejected in another. Each event attached to the publishing workflow can trigger an email notification.

This metadata is useful to define a future publishing date for a document that is validated for publishing.

This metadata enable to activate an expiration date for a document with an associated behavior.