WCMS workflows allow the Content Team to delegate tasks to other team members and review and approve web content before publishing it to the storefront.
Any workflow is derived from a workflow template. These templates are defined by developers and configured to restrict which users can edit, review, and/or approve content.
Note
Permission management is done for user groups like cmseditor, cmsreviewer, cmstranslator or cmspublisher. Individual users like Laura are then assigned to their respective group to receive permissions – thus Laura and other team members become cmseditor, but her supervisor becomes cmsreviewer etc.
SAP Commerce Cloud provides three out-of-the-box workflow templates explicitly for content editing, reviewing, and publishing:
- Page Lock
- Page Approval
- Page Translation and Approval
WCMS Workflow Templates
- Page Lock
When users start this workflow, they trigger the Lock Page action. Only the user who starts the Page Lock workflow can review or update the content and make the appropriate decision to unlock the page. When the user triggers the Unlock Page action, SmartEdit ends the workflow and the page becomes available for editing by others again.
- Page Approval
Starting this workflow on a new or edited page triggers a reviewer to either reject the content (send it back for editing) or approve it. Approval changes the page status to APPROVED. A cmspublisher can then publish the page by selecting the publish decision, which also automatically ends the workflow. The different workflow actions are assigned to members of the following groups:
cmseditorgroup, cmsreviewergroup, cmspublishergroup
- Page Translation and Approval
This workflow includes the previously mentioned page approval workflow and adds additional steps to review and approve the translated text by members of the cmstranslatorgroup.
Let’s examine the last and most complex workflow in a detailed demo.
While you’re watching, keep an eye on the page status as it changes throughout the video. A new page will start with the status Draft. Starting the workflow, approving all tasks, and triggering publication will change the page status to In Progress, Ready to Sync, and Synced, respectively.
Before diving into several setup details, let’s first see this workflow in action.
Let’s review the Page Translation and Approval workflow from the video from a bird's-eye view:
Note
You might think this looks complex, but imagine the effort and the error-prone coordination required for this communication all by yourself.
Now, with the big picture in mind, let us also see some examples on how workflow management might look like on the SmartEdit UI for the roles cmseditor and cmsreviewer.
Let’s assume Laura in her role as cmseditor just finished editing a page:
Workflow Tasks, the Inbox and Announcements
When a page is in an active workflow, SmartEdit displays a workflow menu called Page Tasks. The menu consists of two tabs: Current and All. The Current tab displays the currently active task. The All tab displays all tasks in the currently active workflow and indicates their status.
Of course, you can only execute a task in a workflow if you have the correct permissions and are a member of the user group the task is assigned to. SmartEdit notifies you of pending tasks in active workflows via announcements and displays the number of tasks next to the Inbox. When you open the Inbox, SmartEdit displays the tasks. Even better, when you select a task, SmartEdit conveniently jumps to the page with the active workflow.