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The purpose of the available workflows is to obtain feedback for an article or to trigger a page approval. In the following, these workflows are therefore called review workflows. They are based on the BPMN 2.0 standard.

Types of reviews

Four different types of page-based workflows are available.

Workflow type Participants Description
Single user approval 1 user A single user is asked to vote about a page. If a user submits a positive vote, the page is automatically approved.
Expert document control 3 users After a page has been edited by a specific user, the page is reviewed by an expert and then approved by a user who is responsible for approvals.
Group feedback 1 group A group (which needs to exist in the group manager and which has at least three members) is asked to leave a comment about a page.
Single user feedback 1 user A user is asked to send a comment regarding a page.

Notifications and reports

  • When a task gets assigned: When a user needs to complete a workflow task, both a notification and a task are created.
  • At the end of a workflow: After a workflow has ended, the initiator receives a notification and an email is sent to a report recipient (as defined at the beginning of the workflow).
  • When a workflow gets aborted:
    • A notification is sent to users with a pending workflow task.
    • A notification is sent to the originator if a workflow got aborted.
    • Participants of past or future steps don't receive a notification until it is their turn.

Workflow activities

All approval workflows start with a form for collecting the necessary information. Each workflow results in one or more workflow activities.

Single user approval

Purpose: Approval of a draft page by a user with approval rights. This workflow only makes sense if the approval function (FlaggedRevs) is activated on a page.

Workflow instances: Only one approval workflow can run per page.

File:Manual:bpmn-SingleUserApproval.svg
BPMN diagram of a "Single user approval" workflow
Activity Description
CollectData In the first workflow step, the workflow initiator enters the settings:
  • User: ser who is assigned to the task.
  • Instructions: A comment or instructions for the user to understand the task.
  • Send report to: An email report with the results will be sent to this email address when the review is finished. If a username is specified here, an email address must be stored in the user administration so that the report can be sent.
PageCheckout The page is locked for editing by other wiki users. Only the user with the workflow task can edit while this workflow is running.
UserVote The assigned user carries out a vote and either accepts the page or rejects it. Alternatively, the task can be delegated. In the event of a rejection, the workflow skips the next step (ApprovePage).
ApprovePage Only if the user has submitted a positive vote (accept), the page is set to an approved state.
SendMail An email report is sent to the report recipient who was specified in the first step.
PageCheckin The page is unlocked.

View BPMN

Expert document control

Purpose: Approval of a draft page according to the "4-eyes principle".

Workflow instances: A page can only have one approval worfklow at a time.

File:Manual:bpmn-ExpertDocControl.svg
BPMN diagram of the "Expert document control" workflow
Activity Description
CollectData In the first workflow step, the workflow initiator enters the settings:

User: User who is assigned to a task. Three different users have to be specified: Editor, Reviewer, Approver

Instructions: A comment or instructions for the users to understand their tasks.

Send report to: An email report with the results will be sent to this email address when the review is finished. If a username is specified here, an email address must be stored in the user administration so that the report can be sent.

PageCheckout The page is locked for users who do not participate in the workflow. Only the Editor (first workflow participant) and Reviewer (second participant) of the workflow can edit the page during checkout.
EditPage The Editor user can edit the page and completes the task without comment.
UserVote After the Editor step has been completed,the Reviewer user can edit the page and submit a vote. As an alternative, the Reviewer can delegate the task. If the vote is positive (Approve), the workflow continues. If the Reviewer rejects, the workflow goes back to the Editor.
PageCheckin After the Reviewer submits a positive vote (accept), the page is checked in and the workflow continues.
PageCheckout In this step, the page checkout locks the page for editing completely. The Approver user will not be able to change the page, but needs to approve it.
ApprovePage The Approver can either complete or delegate the task. After the Approver (or the delegate) finishes the assigned task, the page is set from "draft" to "approved" status if the page was in draft status (only if the approver submits a positive vote). If not, this step is skipped.
SendMail If an email or user was specified in the workflow settings, the report is now getting sent to that user.
PageCheckin The page gets unlocked for editing.


view BPMN

Group feedback

Purpose: Obtaining feedback from the members of a user group. The group must exist in the group manager.

Workflow instances: Several feedback workflows can run independently of one another on one page at the same time.

File:Manual:bpmn-GroupFeedback..svg
BPMN diagram of the "Group feedback" workflow
Activity Description
CollectData In the first workflow step, the workflow initiator enters the settings:
  • Group: User group who is assigned to the task.
  • Instructions: A comment or instructions for the users to understand their task.
  • Send report to: An email report with the results will be sent to this email address when the review is finished. If a username is specified here, an email address must be stored in the user administration so that the report can be sent.
GroupFeedback All users in the assigned group provide feedback via a comment field. This is a parallel workflow, which means that the order of the feedback does not matter.
SendMail If an email or user was specified in the initial workflow screen, a report will be sent to that user after the workflow completes.

view BPMN

Feedback

Purpose: Obtaining feedback from a single user on a page.

Workflow instances: Multiple feedback worfklows can run independently of one another on one page at the same time.

File:Manual:bpmn-UserFeedback.svg
BPMN diagram of the "Single user feedback" workflow
Activity Description
CollectData In the first workflow step, the workflow initiator enters the settings:
  • User: User who is assigned to the task.
  • Instructions: A comment or instructions for the users to understand their task.
  • Send report to: An email report with the results will be sent to this email address when the review is finished. If a username is specified here, an email address must be stored in the user administration so that the report can be sent.
UserFeedback The assigned user sends a comment.
SendMail If an email or user was specified in the workflow settings, the report is now getting sent to that user.

view BPMN

Overview page

All workflows in the wiki are listed on the page Special:Workflows overview. A view for all active workflows and a view for all workflows can be selected.

File:Manual:wf-overview.png
Workflows overview page

Tasks overview

Users are informed about new and pending tasks in their notifications. They can view assigned workflows on their My tasks page.

Workflow triggers

Workflows can either be started manually on each wiki page or started only under certain conditions using individual workflow triggers. Triggers also allow to define in which namespaces both manual and automatic workflows are available.


Permissions

The following permissions are used by this extension:

Permission Included in role Description
workflows-view reader
  • allows viewing workflow elements, including listing of workflows (e.g., viewing all running workflows on a page
  • user can view the page Special:Workflows_overview
workflows-execute editor, reviewer, admin
  • allows starting a workflow and executing a task
workflows-admin admin
  • allows aborting, restoring and administering all workflows
  • user fcdan view and edit the page MediaWiki:WorkflowTriggers

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