Designing an Assignment Workflow
With a Heretto Enterprise subscription, you can design custom workflows to use when assigning work in Heretto CCMS.
Custom assignment workflows, included during the implementation phase with a Heretto Enterprise subscription, become a paid service through Professional Services once implementation completes.
Learn how to define workflows that align with your content development process. Once you've defined your workflows, your CSM can get the workflow configured for you so it becomes available in the Assignments interface.
Workflow Design Considerations
When you begin designing a workflow, think about how your content development process currently runs and if there are ways to improve it. Keep in mind that you can design multiple workflows if different publications or types of assignments follow different processes.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What different deliverables does my organization produce?
- Who writes the content?
- Who reviews the content?
- Who contributes to the content?
- What approvals are required and who can approve the content?
- Are there any limitations that should be in place for accessing the content?
- Are there any processes that should be automated?
Workflow Components
Once you have a general idea of your workflow requirements, you can begin defining your workflows. There are three components to a workflow you must define:
- Steps
- Multiple Assignees
- Triggers
Workflow Steps
Define the steps a workflow should follow. Assignment steps should align with your content development process.
All assignments leverage a workflow with defined steps that must be completed by the assigned user(s). For example, in this workflow, one person is assigned to review the content and another to revise it:
- Review
- Revise
There is no limit to how many steps you can have in a workflow and you can name the steps whatever you want.
When designing a workflow it's helpful to think about both your content development process and who completes the work at each step. For example, consider if multiple reviews are necessary or if you require approvals for any publications.
E-Signature Workflow Step
A workflow step can require a user to associate a PDF document with an electronic signature.
E-Signature Overview
The electronic signature feature enables you to digitally approve documents without the need to physically sign their hard copies.
You can insert an e-signature workflow step anywhere in a workflow.
- Create a Heretto PDF Generator publishing scenario and name it
esignature. For more
information, see PDF Generator Overview.Important: You can only use the Heretto PDF Generator publishing scenarios with the electronic signature feature. Other publishing engines are not yet supported.
- Contact your Customer Success Manager to have them add the e-signature step to an existing or new assignment workflow.
E-Signature Operation
You sign documents electronically by completing an e-signature workflow step in an assignment.
- Assignment
- Opens the assignment in which the document was electronically signed.
- E-signature document source
- Downloads a ZIP file that contains:
- The source files of an e-signed document
- A __manifest__.xml file with information
about the:
- E-Signature ID
- Time stamp
- Signer
- Related comment
- Signed document structure and metadata
<manifest esignatureId="0715f9a7-a045-47ce-808f-dcb953c32d5b" timestamp="1591168913892" user="rafal.karon@heretto.com" comment="I hereby sign this document."> <file path="Map_A.ditamap" uri="/db/organizations/qa/repositories/master/content/documents/Document_A/Map_A.ditamap" id="2fd6abc0-9386-11ea-958b-02429593e86b" timestamp="1591168924156"> <metadata> <meta name="validation-err-msg"></meta> <meta name="char-count">0</meta> <meta name="lock-owner"></meta> <meta name="normalized-checksum">6e2b6a641485d39855b53d13296be64d</meta> <meta name="is-valid">true</meta> <meta name="dita-class">- map/map </meta> <meta name="title">Map A</meta> <meta name="original-template-name">map-template.ditamap</meta> <meta name="__document_owner">rafal.karon@heretto.com</meta> <meta name="num-open-comments">0</meta> <meta name="__document_links_last_processed_rev">-1</meta> <meta name="__last_modified_revision">-1</meta> <meta name="__has_broken_links">false</meta> <meta name="dita-domains"></meta> <meta name="checksum">6e2b6a641485d39855b53d13296be64d</meta> <meta name="original-template-label">Default Map</meta> <meta name="content-type">Map</meta> <meta name="word-count">0</meta> <meta name="__checksum-dirty">false</meta> <meta name="document-valid-md-field">true</meta> <meta name="__last_modified_by">SYSTEM</meta> <meta name="status">in_progress</meta> </metadata> <!--The rest of the document--> </manifest> - E-signature PDF document
- Downloads a zipped PDF publication of the document that you electronically signed.
- E-signature details
- Downloads a zipped PDF file with details about your e-signature.
Multiple Assignees
- All Must Complete
- All users assigned must complete the workflow step. For example, if you have multiple reviewers or contributors that must review the content, you can assign a step to all of them and require everyone assigned to complete the review step.
- Claim
- Only one user must claim and complete the workflow step. For example, if you have a pool of reviewers, you can assign a step to all of them and the first available person can claim and complete the review step. Once a user claims a workflow step, the assignment will no longer display for the others assigned.
Assignment Workflow Triggers
Assignment workflow triggers are automated events that occur when the trigger criteria are met. You can specify triggers for actions that you want to happen as a workflow progresses.
Triggers are part of Heretto CCMS configuration. To add triggers to your workflows, you need to work with your Customer Success Manager. Not all Heretto subscriptions support customizing your workflows. To confirm that workflow triggers are included in your subscription, contact your Customer Success Manager. If you add triggers to your workflows, keep in mind that these are automated events that will happen every time the trigger criteria are met.
Available triggers include:
- Publishing Event
- A publishing event is automatically triggered when an assignment is marked Closed (Resolved). To mark an assignment Closed (Resolved), when closing the assignment, the Resolved check box must remain selected. Publishing events are not triggered for Closed (Unresolved) assignments.
- Editing Mode Change
-
An automated change of the editing mode between workflow steps. Available editing modes are Editing, Suggesting, Commenting, and Viewing. Each workflow step can have a specific editing mode assigned. For example, you may want the Editing mode to be the default mode in the the Author step and the Suggesting mode to be the default mode in the Review step.
- Status Change
- An automated change of the file status between workflow steps. The status of resources in an assignment can change when a workflow step is completed. For example, in a workflow with the steps Author, Review, Verify, you can add a trigger to change the status of the assigned resource(s) to Approved when the Verify step is completed to indicate that content in that file was reviewed and approved and can be shared with customers.