[daisy] workflow feedback

[Marc Portier]

Hi all,

Here is some feedback/suggestions/questions from my first use of the
workflow in 2.0-dev:


[menu]

* Still in full doubt: should all workflow related stuff go under
  - a new top level menu (is there enough screen real-estate available?
or can we reclaim some by moving 'recent changes' under 'tools')
  - or can we have a Tools | Workflow sub-menu?
  - (a separator-line between workflow menu-items and non-workflow items
seems a minimum)


[starting workflow] (tested with review workflow)

* List of available proces-definitions: what if it gets large?
  - will we need some presentation-hierarchy for large setups with
possibly large amounts of possible workflows?  (that or some
facet-browser-like guidance through them based on some metadata?)
  - is there any ACL filtering on those?


* when starting the flow from the context of viewing a certain doc the
URL like reference: "daisy:<docId>@brId:langId:version" is entered
automagically in the field... It might be nice though to
  1/ hide the url and display the document name
  2/ provide a helper button to search/select for another doc

* by the way: this also makes me think if this shouldn't be a
multi-value field to support workflows on docs that are tied together?
(and the hope to kick that of automatically from the doc-basket)

* personally I would prefer the label "importance" over "priority" as
the latter often gets confused with the aspect "due date"... in fact in
my head the 'priority' should directly reflect the order in which work
should be performed and would thus be a smart calculated result of
combining due-date and importance :-) (as in: Task xyz is "important"
but should not take 'priority' here and now yet, since we have some
slack to do "less important" but more urgent (close-by due-date) work
first)  oh well, maybe this is only my understanding of the word 'priority'



[my tasks]

* it feels a bit odd to have 2 separate sections for work assigned to
"me personally" in contrast to work assigned to "one of my pools".  I'ld
like it more to see the full list of work regardless of the fact if the
task was already assigned to me personally

* from the same observation it might be nice to add a fourth option to
the 'assigned-to' drop down in the 'search tasks' screen: "Me or My
pools" | "Me (only)" | "No one" | "Anyone"

* and maybe even an odd fifth one: "Selected Pool: " (and then show a
drop down list of known pools

* still while searching: it might be nice to allow for a similar
filtering also on who created/launched the workflow

* in the resulting table: personally I would prefer "work" or "continue"
 as a replacement label for the current task-action "perform/update"

* from a management angle it might also be nice to show the 'lapsed time
since creation', or for closed tasks 'the lapsed time between start-end'

* would also be nice if in the context of viewing a certain document
(like document-info) one could grab if any workflows are currently
associated to it.

* can the transition history of a given workflow/task be shown?




[acting on a task]

* looks like 'due date' can't be removed: clearing the field just
remembers the previous value rather then setting it to null

* would be nice if the reference to the document to work on could be
presented as some meaning-full live links that would enable me to
directly from there
  - view the document
  - start editing the document
  - see the version-diff of the document against the version at the time
of starting the workflow

(hm, when thinking about bulk document tasks, and even various variants
of one document one might need to be guided through some wizard)

* I find the presentation of the available 'transitions' as a row of
action-buttons a bit *dull* but also less then helpful in understanding
what happens (IMHO these added workflows should be self-explaining).
I'ld prefer some table of available transitions (and their
meaning/effect on the flow, and possibly the target
user/swimlane/pool/endstate associated to the next statethat would be
reached.  Dunno how much of that info is present in the task/workflow
definition file)
In that table could then be a radio-button to select which one you want,
combined with some general [transfer] or [proceed] button.

* I also think there should be a more clear visual distinction with the
no-transition form buttons, currently: [save] and [cancel].  If we have
the radio-button-table explained above we could just have 3 buttons
'(update and) transfer' '(update and) keep' 'cancel' that more clearly
IMHO say what is going on.


[i18n]
* some missing labels:
  - variable.status.in-progress
  - variable.status.on-hold
  - variable.status.completed
* nice to see the i18n support for the label and description of the
process-definitions!
* but makes me unsure if not the same support should be added for the
names/descriptions of the "pools"?
* (broader then only the wf) when entering the Due-date field I'm a bit
helpless in finding out the correct formatting to apply, would be nice
if the warning could provide that information



haven't come round to providing own process definitions yet, hope to do
that soon, and provide some comments on that as well

regards,
-marc=
PS: I also didn't read up on what of the above might already be known in
Jira, or listed in announcement mails, sorry for possible duplicates.
-- 
Marc Portier                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at                http://blogs.cocoondev.org/mpo/
mpo at outerthought.org                              mpo at apache.org