Creating Workflows with SAP Signavio Process Governance

As every process journey starts with tasks, workflows start even earlier, by a trigger. The trigger function allows you to decide how your process begins. Such a trigger could be a form or e-mail that once they are sent out, your process begins. Or another trigger could be that your process will begins when a new hire signs the employment contract. The trigger function allows you to decide how your process begins.

Information can be provided in different ways to trigger a workflow. A person can provide information by filling out a form to submit a request. In other cases, a system sends out an automated notification (for example, when a new order has arrived) to inform other people about the details. However, all information is important and workflows can react in different ways to it, depending on how the trigger has been defined.

SAP Signavio Process Governance offers a range of triggers designed to initiate processes or workflows within the system. These triggers are essential for automating and optimizing process management. The triggers available in SAP Signavio Process Governance include:

In SAP Signavio Process Governance, you can use forms to enter information when you run a process. You can use forms in two places: form triggers and user tasks.

You use a form trigger to set the values of workflow variables when you start a new case for a process. This form has a description (for example, "Enter personal details") and two fields. The icon next to the Name field label indicates that the field has an additional description.

You use a user task form when users must enter and update data as part of the task.

Let's look at how to create a form in SAP Signavio Process Governance. You have already learned how a process can be created.

To start creating a form trigger, we first must create a new process from scratch. Forms are used to ensure that the user provides all required details in (often mandatory) form fields. In SAP Signavio Process Governance, trigger forms can be set to private (default) or public. All forms must contain fields. Form builder allows you to create powerful forms including nested sections, mandatory and dynamic fields, or field groups, and much more.

Let's start creating an approval workflow together in SAP Signavio Process Governance. In the following video we will begin defining the trigger.

After creating a process in SAP Signavio Process Governance, you'll notice an additional tab labeled Actions next to the Trigger tab. Within this tab, there are several elements you can choose from.

These elements are split into three separate sections:

1. Main actions. This category includes all actions which are commonly used in practice in many practical workflows. They can be considered as 'required' for execution in order to achieve the goal of the workflow.
2. Services & other actions. This category groups actions to be used for automated additional support to the main actions, like filling a document template by the system or auto-creating a PDF document with information from the process.
3. Events and Gateways. This category provides all objects required to control the flow and states in the process in order to make sure the right actions get executed.

The following screenshot gives you an overview of all the available elements.

In this lesson, we focus on three main actions: User task that indicates that someone performs a task, multi-user task a group of people will each perform the same task, and send e-mail to a specific user or distribution list.

A user task indicates that a person performs a task. In the configuration form, you can specify the following optional details:

• General: Assign a task to a users or a process role.
• Forms: Add a form to a task; submit the form to complete the task.
• Reminders: Task deadline notifications.
• Access Rights: Task permissions for users and groups.

Use the General tab to specify the task’s default assignee or candidates. You can also specify a role for the task’s assignment, similar to a BPMN swim lane so that SAP Signavio Process Governance automatically assigns related tasks to the same person. Use the form builder to create a user task form for entering and updating data as part of the user task. To use dynamic due dates for tasks, add or reuse a date field or a duration field. Use Reminders to set up notifications on task deadlines. If you configure a Due date or a Reminder period, then SAP Signavio Process Governance sends an e-mail when the deadline expires. A Reminder works separately from the due date and only sends a reminder notification, which you can use to remind task assignees and candidates earlier than the task deadline. With continued reminders, you can add recurring reminders. SAP Signavio Process Governance sends a maximum of 25 reminders for one task. Use the Access Rights tab to set permissions for viewing, assigning, and completing the task. See Restricting access to user tasks for details.

Consider a simple Approve Document process that consists of an approval task followed by a manual decision, with options ‘Approve’ and ‘Reject.’

In this process, only one person reviews the document and completes the ‘Approve report’ task. This makes sense when there is one author who prepares the document and one other person who reviews it. However, this doesn’t work for scenarios where a document has multiple authors who must all approve the final version.

A multi-user task indicates that a group of people will each perform the same user task. In the configuration form, you can specify the same options as in the user tasks, with 'Results' being the only extra option.

• General: Assign a task to users and groups.
• Forms: Add a form to a task; submit the form to complete the task.
• Result: Multi-user task distributes work to different people. The information entered by everyone will be collected and put into result lists.
• Reminders: Task deadline notifications.
• Access Rights: Task permissions for users and groups.

You can use this to model multiple approvals, where several people in a group must approve a proposal. Sometimes a business process includes a task that everyone in a group must perform, such as when several people must review a proposal. Consider a simple Approve Document process that consists of an approval task followed by a manual decision, with options ‘Approve’ and ‘Reject'. SAP Signavio Process Governance now includes a ‘multi-user task’ action type - a multi-instance user task - that makes multiple approvals possible. If you update the previous process model to support multiple approvals, the ‘Review report’ multi-user task looks like a normal user task, but with the action type icon that changes to multi-user.

Let´s learn how to create a multi-user task.

You can specify a parallel or sequential execution type. If you select Parallel (the three bars switch to a parallel order), the multi-user task creates all the tasks at the same time, for their assignees to complete in any order. If you select Sequential (the three bars switch to a sequential order), the multi-user task creates one task at a time, and wait for its assignee to complete it before creating another.

The send e-mail action sends an e-mail to the specified user. When an e-mail was sent successfully, the case event e-mail that was sent is added to the case history. If the e-mail can't be sent because it exceeds the maximum size, it is sent without attachments. If this is successful, the case history shows that the event e-mail was sent without attachments. If sending the reduced-size e-mail is not successful, the e-mail won't be sent. E-mail tasks belong to the Main actions group and can be selected by clicking on them.

By default, the e-mail is sent with the From field set to SAP Signavio Process Governance. You can set the From field to your company or department name. You can enter one or more plain e-mail addresses, or select e-mail variables or users in the organization. Note that if you enter a plain e-mail address, you must then select it from the pick list. To use variables in the subject, type a # and select a field from the list. If the list contains too many variables, you can just keep typing after the # to filter the list. You can use the arrow keys to move the section and Enter to select a field. To add attachments, choose Attachments and select a file field from the list. The list includes trigger e-mail attachments, files generated by the Create document action, and file upload form fields. You can use variables in the main e-mail body by typing a #, just like in the Subject. You can use Markdown to format the e-mail body by formatting text or including hyperlinks, headings, or lists. Select the Preview tab to see how your e-mail looks for the recipient.

In the following video, we will build the structure for our approval workflow example, using the elements available in the actions section.

Now, watch the video below to see how to further configure each of the steps in the process.

Watch the following video to see how to publish and run the approval workflow example we have previously created.