Planning your workflow processes

The planning and design element is the most important aspect of creating a workflow process. You need to identify what you want to achieve and what you want the workflow to do.

We recommend that you map out new workflows on paper before adding anything to the system.

Before you start to create a workflow in the system, you need to consider the questions outlined below.

What type of workflow process do you need?

You can use the System Catalogue functionality to categorise workflows in whatever way best suits your organisation.

In some workflow types (Absence, Appraisal/Review, Leaver, New Starter, Probation and Training), you can link tasks to appropriate dates in employee records, so it is best to put the workflows into the correct category, as you cannot move them after you have created them.

What does the workflow process need to do?

Make a list of what is involved in the workflow process and split this into separate tasks. For example, you could create a new starter workflow that includes the following tasks:

  • Email the start date to IT.

  • Email the new starter’s bank details to payroll.

Or a leaver process that includes the following tasks:

  • Email to ask IT to delete the user account.

  • Email the leaving date to payroll.

  • Email the whole company to let them know that the employee has left.

To help with the planning process, this table lists the types of task that the system can generate.

Task type

Description

Auto Decision

The system decides on which direction to take, or whether to stop, based on whether or not an employee is in a particular dynamic group

Diary Entry

Not available for use in Workflow, but you can manually add diary entries in your task list. Diary entries are simple reminders

Document Merge

Produces a mail merge document

E-Mail

Sends an email with the required information to the task owner, or to all role members if the task owner is a role member

Form

Tasks that can be completed using an online form, for example, training course evaluations, appraisal forms or sickness self-certification forms

Notification

Sends an announcement to the selected role/employee on the date specified

Create Survey

Used in Training workflows to prompt the user to create a new survey

Survey

Used in Training workflows to prompt the user to complete a survey

Tick box

Adds a box for the user to tick to confirm that they have completed the task

User Decision

Prompts the user to decide about the task.

User decisions can trigger another process to start, the current process to stop, or the current process to continue.

For example, employees could be prompted to decide whether they would prefer a car or a car allowance. If an employee selected the ‘Car’ option, this would trigger the start of the company car ordering process. If an employee selected ‘Car Allowance’, this would trigger an email to Payroll with the relevant information

Who will be the owner of the tasks?

In the system, you can select any of the following as the owner of Workflow tasks. The task owner is the person who needs to complete the task.

For Email tasks, the system is the task owner, as the system sends the email, but for all other task types you need to specify the task owner, using this table as a guide.

Task owner

Assigns the task to

Individual

A named individual person

Members of a role

Members of a specific role (for example, HR)

Line Manager

The line manager of the employee whose data starts the workflow process (shown in the Works For field on the Job & Salary screen). The task is shown in the line manager’s tasklist

Employee

The employee whose data starts the workflow process. The task is shown in the employee’s tasklist

Job-Field lookup

A named employee other than the line manager in an Employee Picker field on the Job & Salary screen

User Who Starts The Process

The user who adds the data that triggers the workflow process

System

The system (Email tasks and Auto Decision tasks). System tasks are automatically generated on the date required without any user intervention

If you plan to use reminders for tasks, you also need to decide who should receive these reminders.