Knowledge Base

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.

This article is an extension of Translation of WEBCON BPS Portal user interface content and contains more information about language configuration in WEBCON BPS Designer Studio such as system language setting, mass notification language setting (since BPS 2020.1.3 version), application language setting and notification language setting for new users (since BPS 2020.1.3) version. WEBCON BPS allows you to both force one system language and select the language by a user. Both approaches have pros and cons that need to be considered before deciding which solution to use. On the one hand, we can impose a standard that will create a fully uniform environment, on the other hand, we can translate each application independently, adapting to the needs of end-users.

With the introduction of version 2019 and the entire Portal interface, several search methods have been included in Portal that allow you to search not only the content of the workflow instances but also the structure of all applications available on Portal (e.g. reports, dashboards, start buttons). This article describes where and what you can search from the Portal level – information about the search mechanism can be found in the Searching structure in WEBCON BPS Portal article. On the Portal, there are three searching places, the mechanism of which is the same, but differing in the way of the narrowing down of the results (described in the next part of this article). The search returns only those elements that the user has the privilege to access.

On WEBCON BPS Portal, one of the standard tabs that can be selected from the menu on the left is the “My tasks” tab. After selecting it, you see a report that describes a list of tasks assigned to the currently logged in person. On the report page, there are references to each of the instances with a task awaiting for a user. A task window contains information about them, e.g. the instance number or modification date. You can modify this information – both the fields displayed and their order. This window contains information about e.g. instance number, form type, step name and las modifier. WEBCON BPS allows you to change this configuration – go to the WEBCON BPS Designer Studio. Select the appropriate process and go to the “Compact view” section.

In WEBCON BPS version 2020, the support for digital signatures has been enhanced by preparing plugins (SDK – Software development kit) that enable digital signing of documents. The following article describes the process of signing documents by using Skribble software. Signing documents does not require an account on the Skribble platform or in WEBCON BPS (except for the QES standard). It is a good practice to store the Skribble connection parameters in global or application constants so that they may be easily used across multiple configurations, according to the example table below.

The following article is an extension of the Lunchtime article – see: Lunchtime application. The “Lunchtime” application has been enhanced with dictionary processes that allow you to pay for meals with money previously paid into your personal account. Extending the “Lunchtime” app with the pre-paid function is a good solution for people who want to avoid paying for the delivered food every time. It is also a great convenience for the person who manages such a workflow. The pre-paid solution can also be applied to other workflows in the company. Wherever there is an employee’s account and some form of regular deposits – the traditional way of paying can be replaced with a pre-paid.

When creating the configurable e-mail templates there is the option to add fields from the form. This article describes how to add an item list and SQL data table fields. To enter these types of fields in the template is needed: basic knowledge of HTML language (specifically building tables) and a process that contains an item list and a data table. After defining these types of fields on the form, create the “Send a custom email” action that contains the HTML code creating a table with data from the form.By using HTML knowledge you can create configurable e-mail according to your needs. This functionality allows you to control how data on the item lists and data tables will be displayed on the form.

For this article we will implement a simple system for dividing up tasks between a group of users, based on the following principles:
1) The task will go to the user with the least amount of tasks
2) If multiple users are tied for the fewest number of tasks, one of them is randomly assigned the task
3) There is a limit to how many tasks a user can have
4) Once all users of the group have reached this limit, tasks will be placed in a queue
5) Queued tasks will be assigned to somebody as soon as they are no longer at their task cap

The purpose is to split up the workload between users equally and not overwhelm individual users with too many tasks.

In the latest version of WEBCON BPS, the report coloring has been enhanced for additional functionalities (a description of the basic report coloring modes can be found here). There is the ability to go through a path without having to view the specific instance – just click on a properly configured cell. This configuration also allows you to set the cell style, as well as special display functions. An example that presents the advanced functionality of reports coloring is the process of listing stored products (e.g. bicycle models). Each workflow instance represents a warehouse with the serial numbers of its products.