Basic workflow structure

The out-of-the-box workflows are found in the System workflows section. Click the drop-down list and hover your cursor over an object to see available workflows. Click a workflow to load the workflow into the canvas.

The system workflows cannot be edited or deleted. If you have not configured any of your own tenant workflows, you can use the system workflows for your objects.

A workflow is created, edited, versioned, and published in the Tenant workflows section. View a workflow in the same way as you do for the System workflows.

The version of the selected workflow is shown beside the workflow name. Beside this, you can see which version was last published, who created the workflow, and what the current workflow version status is.

You can create as many workflows as you need for each object to cover all possible lifecycles your objects may follow. For example, a Change Request is used to change an item’s status. Typically, this is used to release an item, but can also include obsoleting an item. Therefore, you could create one workflow to release an item and another to obsolete an item. You could take this further and create different release workflows to use in different project types or for different item types.

All workflows must have a Start and Stop primitive to properly initiate and close the workflow, and unlock all objects locked into the workflow. The primitives in between map out the ideal process (ie. happy path) as well as any possible roadblocks (ie. exception path) that may occur. The happy paths are displayed in green. The exception paths are displayed in red.

Each primitive is assigned an ID number as it is added to the workflow, and has a specific shape and colour. The name of the primitive is shown above it (you can configure the name). All of this helps you visually see the order of the steps in the workflow, what steps require user interaction, and which steps are performed entirely by Upchain according to the primitive’s settings. Click a primitive to load its details on the right side.