Workflow Document Management Software: Document Workflow Overview

What are the major pieces of Document Workflow?

Organizations typically have a number of internal processes for tasks such as order processing, purchase requests, travel expenses, and the like. Workflow brings order to these independent processes in a transparent, dynamic, and robust fashion making it a key part of the document lifecycle.

The FileHold workflow engine is designed specifically to streamline the review and approval of documents as they proceed through their lifecycle. In many collaborative work environments, this labor intensive growth stage of the document is where the most time savings can be realized through the use of workflow.

Let’s take a look at the basic elements and roles of users involved in FileHold document workflow's. Consider the following diagram.

1. A workflow contains one or more activities each of which contain one or more tasks.
   
2. All workflow's begin from a user initiating a workflow for a version of a document stored in the FileHold library. This person - called the workflow Initiator - is usually the owner of the document or a designated library administrator. Every time a workflow is initiated a unique workflow instance is created and managed by the FileHold workflow engine. The underlying workflow engine is designed to manage literally thousands of simultaneous workflow instances for thousands of documents.
   
3. Once initiated the first activity in the workflow begins. In this example it the first activity is for the review of a document. The users assigned the task of reviewing the documents are called participants. The participants are notified by email or their task list of their new review task requiring attention.
   
4. Once all tasks in the activity are completed the activity is considered complete and the next activity begins – in this case it is an approval activity. The participants in this activity are responsible for approving or rejecting the document.
   
5. On completion of the last activity in any workflow the workflow is considered complete. The time from workflow initiation to completion can be from hours to months depending on the process the workflow is managing.
   
6. The entire time the workflow is in progress observers can be designated to watch over the workflow instance.

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