[daisy] workflow feedback

[Steven Noels]

On 22 Nov 2006, at 12:52, Marc Portier wrote:

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

Adding onto that, I did my own review today. And I had some general  
thoughts as well - after showcasing the current state to a willing  
end-user victim (aka Customer).

Workflow in Daisy

Idea behind these notes: either workflow is useful or it sucks. If it  
sucks, no-one is going to use it. If it sucks, we loose the marketing  
advantage of this important new feature. Usefulness is a function of  
user-friendliness and maintainability. Since workflow is very much  
dependent on the organisation Daisy is set up for, we should come up  
with sensible defaults, however it is realistic to say workflow  
configuration and setup will always be part of a larger project, and  
will easily take up over a week of consultation and configuration.
Also: some notes on the current (unfinished) implementation, after  
showcasing its unfinished state to an innocent end-user.

* Automated initiation of workflow process

For workflow to become really user-friendly, document save sandboxes  
really should be available. Which is a problem because they are not. :-)

Sandboxes create the distinction between 'save' and 'commit', whereas  
'save' saves a document version in a user-specific location (a  
function of the Wiki application rather than the repository), and  
'commit' saves the document into the repository while creating a new  
version. A commit operation is required to make new document versions  
available for other users - saved versions only exist for the person  
editing or creating the document version.

With this distinction, there is a logical point to introduce  
automated initiation of a workflow process into the commit procedure.  
When committing a document version to the repository, depending on  
configuration/setup, either the user can select a workflow process to  
be initiated (from a list of possible options, possibly pre- 
configured depending on version properties), or a process can be  
started automatically.

* Configuring automated (or suggested) initiation of a workflow process

Currently, only the document ID seems to be used to parametrize a  
workflow process. Depending on other version characteristics however,  
more automatic configuration should be possible.

Some use cases.

1) Based on document type. Depending on document type, a reviewers  
pool is pre-selected. Newsrelease documents will be reviewed by the  
tech department pool - product usage notes by the engineering  
department.

2) Other document properties. Depending on a document field value,  
the due date is pre-set. A press-release with a field Priority set  
with a value High gets a review due date within 1 days. A Normal  
priority value sets the due date to current day + 4 working days.

3) User characteristics. Depending on 'group membership', a pool is  
pre-selected. My roles are 'user' and 'engineering', which means  
review processes will always be initiated with the engineering pool  
pre-set.

(sidenote: is the user/pool selection thingy hard-coded or  
configurable? does it depend on the process definition or daisy  
process meta model?)

Plus a number of screen shots for those who don't have access a Daisy  
2.0 trunk version ATM.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: menu.jpg.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 46236 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.cocoondev.org/pipermail/daisy/attachments/20070119/5793171d/menu.jpg-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: select_workflow.jpg.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 54384 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.cocoondev.org/pipermail/daisy/attachments/20070119/5793171d/select_workflow.jpg-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: start_workflow.jpg.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 80568 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.cocoondev.org/pipermail/daisy/attachments/20070119/5793171d/start_workflow.jpg-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: workflow_console.jpg.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 82340 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.cocoondev.org/pipermail/daisy/attachments/20070119/5793171d/workflow_console.jpg-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------

</Steven>
-- 
Steven Noels                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought                              Open Source Java & XML
stevenn at outerthought.org                stevenn at apache.org