Knowledge Base

Working with attachments is one of the basic functionalities in WEBCON BPS. Some processes such as document repository are only used to catalog and make files available to selected users. In others, the attachments may be of secondary importance. For example, when you want to work on a file together with your client, a good solution may be the integration of WEBCON BPS with file storage such as One Drive or Google Drive. It allows you to avoid situations where you have several different versions of the same document because the changes made by you and by the client are not merged. The standard action available in WEBCON BPS allows integration with many external software providers such as Google Drive. You can use it to transfer files or maintain an active access token.

The article describes the use of “Change value single field” and “Change values of multiple fields” actions on the example of the business scenario of the settlement of business trips. These actions allow you to update the value of the single form field or many form fields at the same time based on data available on the form or any values from outside the form available e.g. in the database or within other processes in WEBCON BPS. The action of changing value can be defined on a path, after clicking a button or on timeout. The “Change value single field” action has been used to determine the exchange rate at which business trip expenses will be calculated. The final rate consists of two values – the average rate and foreign currency unit. The “Change values of multiple fields” action is used to when more than one value is from the same source.

The „Analysis” tab available in WEBCON BPS Designer Studio allows you to see the time of the instances being in a given step and the time of their edition at individual steps. You can also set the planned time of editing an element and the time in which the element should be in a given step. It allows you to check if individual people with the assigned task do not hold it longer than they should, or if the form is created in non-intuitive manner, which will result in a longer than the assumed time of editing. This article describes the analysis functionality in WEBCON BPS Designer Studio 2020. The analysis of statistical data at individual steps allows you to draw conclusions that can improve the efficiency of business processes. Examples of observations may concern e.g. finding places where editing the form is more time-consuming than expected.

Mass actions allow you to go through the path (and execute the actions that are on it e.g. starting sub-workflows) for many instances at the same time. The article describes the configuration of this action and two examples of use. To change the form field value at the Archive step, select the path (in this example – “_change value”) which redirects to the Archive step. You do not add the action to change the field value. Similarly as before, create a report with instances from the Archive step. Add a new mass action button, select the created technical path and drag the form field from the tree to the left side. Select if the field should be required and make sure that the report has a column called Step!. Drag the button to the left in the Views tab.

In WEBCON BPS there is the ability of creating a dedicated SDK plugin. For example, these can be dedicated plugins: converting PDF to jpg/jpeg/png format, merging several PDFs into one, generating Excel based on the SQL query, creating/deleting SharePoint groups based on the query, changing the form type, settlement of business trips. To upload a plugin package to Designer Studio you need go to the Plugin packages section, click “New package", use the „Upload” button to indicate the plugin location - the name is automatically set.

The instance number is a unique string of characters in the system (e.g. EXP/2020/09/00002) that uniquely identifies each workflow instance, and it is created when the instance is first saved. This number will always refer to the same instance and there is no option to change them, even by administrators. A properly configured structure of the instance number facilitates searching for instances (without knowing their ID number) and viewing reports. This article describes the methods of configuration the instance number and the advantages of defining appropriate signatures. Instance numbers can be defined on two different levels – workflows or form types, however only one of them will be set by the system (if both are defined at the same time, the instance will be assigned the number defined in the form type).

Task and step descriptions are brief instructions on a form that help users complete a task. Descriptions can improve the workflow instance by reducing the number of errors and questions. They can contain basic information which helps a new user get started with the application, and also may explain the more complex dependencies between the form fields required to add attachments or selectable paths that will make the task easier to complete.
Step description. The step description is visible by default on the right part of the form but you can move them elsewhere, just like a regular form field. This section always contains the “Task details” header, the name of the step (in the case of the start step – they will be always “Start of the process”) and description created by a person that sets up the process.

While working on WEBCON BPS Portal, you can see the error messages displayed by the system in the upper right corner – they are displayed when the system encounters a problem and the execution of any action fails. From version 2020.1.3.277 there is the ability of previewing error logs from the administration tools panel. But there is also the option to access to error logs from the level of the AdminWFEventLogs table in the configuration database (for users use the older versions). The administration tool from Designer Studio allows you to search for information about the error. This information is downloaded from the database and displays data from the WEL_Name and WEL_Details columns of the AdminWEEventLogs table.

From the point of view of business requirements, a common need is the approval of the document by people on the designated approval path. WEBCON BPS introduces functionality that simplifies the configuration of such a scenario – a list of items. A person authorized to approve can edit only the line to which they are assigned. As for all other tasks, the settings for simultaneous execution of tasks determine whether the instance must be approved by one of the people indicated on the approval path or all indicated people. The second situation can be divided into a scenario in which a task is assigned to all people approving the instance and the same time and a scenario in which people from the approval path verify them one by one. This article describes the configuration of all three scenarios.

The article describes the functionality of inheriting the global form settings and form field definition in WEBCON BPS. Global template inheritance – this setting the order of form fields according to the process tree. This means that the order of the form fields in the group and columns on the item list configured in the process correspond to their location on the global form template. Breaking form settings inheritance is most often used to change the settings of the form fields’ order on steps or item list settings. However, if you decide to overwrite the form field settings – it is a good practice to describe it in the form field documentation.