• Feature Request: Write the name of the approver to a specified field for each stage

    By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

    Hi, I am using RealWorkflow and since many times, a workflow contains some aspect of accepting or rejecting a request, I thought it might be nice to have the ability to specify a field name in the target form as the place to write the approver for that stage. So, for instance, if you create a form that will take part in the workflow called 'Service Request' and there is a field on there called ApprovedBy. The stage document would have a place to enter ApprovedBy when that stage is 'passed.' Just a thought.



    Thanks,

    Eric

    • Oops... should be under Requests<eom>

      By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

    • This is possible now

      By Colin Williams 2 decades ago

      You can already do this. It is possible to set the approver at any state by specifying a field value.

      • Maybe I misunderstood

        By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

        Can you check my post under Requests and see if that is the same? My understanding is that the current Approver field functionality allows you to pull a value from an existing field to be the Approver for the stage. My request is actually to mark a different field for historical purposes.



        Thanks,

        Eric

        • Intrigued

          By Colin Williams 2 decades ago

          I don't really understand why you'd want this as the request documents themselves have this detail…but I am intrigued…



          Am I correct in thinking you want to record on the State document itself, a list of users who approved a request at that state?



          Can you expand on why this is important?

          • See my reply...

            By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

    • I think this can be done by using the edit history.

      By Phillip A Kahrl 2 decades ago

      The field "rwfHistoryUser" contains a list of past persons who changed the state of the document, therefore, you should be able to use a computed field with the forumula "@Subset(rwfHistoryUser;-1)" to get this information.

      • Good idea

        By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

        I should have tried that first. Obviously, I am just getting started with this library… didn't check to see if you guys already had that field.



        I'll check it out.



        Thanks,

        Eric

        • On the other hand...

          By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

          I like having these conversations with myself. :-) The reason that I would like this functionality is because I am capturing the approver in multiple fields, sort of like capturing a person's signature. So, for example, I have four fields… Manager, CIO, CFO and CEO. At each stage I need to write the value of the person who approved to each separate field. Having this field specified in the Stage form saves me the trouble of having functionality in the form that distributes the signature based on the current Stage.



          Have I convinced you yet? ;-)



          Eric

          • You can modify you're queryclose or query save agent

            By Phillip A Kahrl 2 decades ago

            Eric,



            I would suggest modifying the querysave or queryclose agent to do whatever additional taks you want done before or after calling WorkflowDocument.processContextDoc(). This will allow to use a custom feature in your own application without losing compatibility with future releases of the library.



            Your suggestion could potentially be added as a new feature in a future release, especially if we have other users who are interested in the same functionality.



            Adding features to the application library is always a difficult decision as we want to try to balance adding new features with keeping the existing application clean and easy to use.

            • Magic

              By Colin Williams 2 decades ago

              Thats the magic of RealWorkFlow - it provides enough tools to get the job done but doesn't get in the way. Yes there are other workflow tools that do far more hand holding but because of this they are somewhat inflexible - we evaluated a number of these and ultimately they didn't fit because they forced us to do workflow in a way that was foreign to our own ideas on how it should be done.



              A generic lightweight framework like RealWorkFlow also lends itself very nicely to plugging into other apps. Eg, our custom Helpdesk will get this treatment as soon as I find some time. Try that with your $8000 USD per server ,all singing, all dancing workflow builder!



              I've created my own LS script library to handle all the bits that the basic framework doesn't. Because of this, our workflows are consistent in their interaction with users and it becomes a simple matter to paste these components into a vanilla template to get a new workflow up and running very quickly.



              I LOVE this tool! :)

              • I agree

                By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

                RWF has already saved me a lot of time on my current project. I am just throwing out some ideas as I come across different scenarios that I come across. Not that every one needs to make it into the project, but just trying to see if there is any interest or if it has already been thought about. Fun chatting with you guys, anyway.



                Eric

                • 3.0.1

                  By Colin Williams 2 decades ago

                  Agree - It's good to see some activity and bounce some ideas about…its always interesting to see how people are using the tool.



                  Have you had a chance to test 3.0.1? I spent a little while yesterday playing with it as I'm keen on getting the escalations working. I've had a couple of little niggles and let Phil know - just wondered if you'd had any issues?

                  • Not yet

                    By Eric Borisow 2 decades ago

                    Actually, RWF has saved me so much time, that I've been having to concentrate on the rest of the app. :-) I'll have to let you know if I run into anything.



                    Thanks,

                    Eric