Creating a New Workflow

Summary

Workflows are used to determine the process from the start to the end of a job. They determine what statuses and events apply to the job at each stage and allow you to easily recreate the same method for all work undertaken. Workflows can be as simple as a few steps, or as involved as dozens. It entirely depends on how you work.

Prerequisites

To apply a job status to a step, the status will first need to be created in Oneserve. Check out our guide on Job Statuses for more information.

The user type right Workflow [WORKFLOW_LIST] provides access to the workflow page under the admin menu and the workflow hyperlink on the job detail page.

Guide

Creating a new workflow

Select the Cog icon to open the Admin menu.
Select "Workflow" under the "Jobs" section. If you have previously created a workflow, it will appear in this list
Use the + icon at the top of the screen to create a new Workflow.

In the box that pops up, give your workflow a name and click "Save"

View Properties

To view the properties of your workflow, click "View Properties". The

Start Job When Appts Start - this refers to the mobile application and should be turned on if you would like a job to move Status when work has been started or completed by a mobile user. To do this you will need a Status in the Pending group (the dark blue group) and a link to Status in the In Progress group (the orange group)
Complete Job When Appts Completed - as above. To do this you will need a Status in the Progress group (the orange group) and a link to Status in the Complete group (the bright green group)
Default Step - when a job is cancelled and reinstated, this is the step it will be reverted to

The first Job Status will always be Newly Created. The Waiting to Start option will automatically populate, but this can be altered to a different status. To change it, click on the Action button and select Edit.

This will open the Workflow Step screen. You can select the relevant Job Status and click on the save button.

Use the Add Step button to add each Job Status that will be used in the Workflow.

Transitions

Once the steps have been created, you can add Transitions. Transitions link each Status together. You can have multiple Transitions against each step and they can take the job forward or back in the Workflow.

Select 'Add Transition' from the action menu. The Transition Step editing screen will display on the right hand side of the screen.

Fill in the fields as detailed below:

Name - Enter the name for the Transition step.
Description - Describe the Transition step.
Notes - Give a short explanation of what the transition will do. This will be visible when the button is hovered over with the mouse
Destination Step - Enter the Status the job should move to next.
Transition View - When you select a Transition you can control what screen if any appears. The options are:
- No Transition Screen
- Basic Transition Screen - One field to enter notes
- Start Job Screen - The option to enter the actual job start date/time and the option to add in a reason for any late starts. Useful to use on the Transition between Waiting to Start and Work in Progress
- Complete Job Screen - You can alter the job started time, enter the job completed date/time, enter hours worked on the job and resolution notes. Useful to use on the Transition between Work in Progress and Complete
- Advanced Transition Screen - The fields available are notes, supplier, priority, planned start date, planned end date and job description. If you allocate jobs to a subcontractor at any stage this Transition is useful because you can add additional notes and reassign the supplier at the same time

If you are using the Basic or Advanced transition screens you will need to populate the Post Functions to have an event. The event will add an entry to the job history to store and notes applied on these transition screens. Without a post function you will lose the notes entered.

Transition Note Type - Define which Note Type dropdown will be added to the transition view. You can add new notes to an existing note type using the Notes Admin menu

Here is an example of a job note appearing on a job transition screen

For more information please see our article on Job Notes

Button Sequence - Transition buttons appear at the top of every job. You can use the button sequence to define the order each Transition will appear (1 will be the first option on the left). If you are using the mobile application to move jobs to Work in Progress when the engineer clicks Start Work and Work Completed you will need to set these transitions to be number 1

Conditions - You can assign a user type right for the Transition. Controlling the conditions will allow you to determine what User Types can process jobs when they are at the Status. For example, you could use this to stop certain users from processing a job to invoice. Validators - requires cost approval has an On or Off toggle. If the toggle is set to On it will stop the Transition button from appearing on the job until all cost lines have been marked as approved. You could use this on the Transition to Invoice so you know that all of the jobs costs have been approved beforehand.

Post Functions -Job Events can be assigned using the dropdown for Add Job Event and Select Sig Event. When a job moves status using the Transition, it will apply the event to the job history. This will allow you to see when the job was moved and by whom. If you are adding notes in a transition screen you will need to specify an event for these notes to be saved against. For more information click here
Generate Letter Group - This will queue the selected Letter Group when the step transition is triggered

Toggle Buttons

Re-calculate target date - This will use the current date and apply the priority from a job to determine the new target date. Priorities are applied to a job during the job creation process or modifying job details. This is usually turned on for the first step of the Workflow, but be careful using it for other steps because it will affect your RAG reports.
Use Date from Att - You need to turn on Re-calculate Target date for this drop down to become available. You will be able to use the date from a site attribute and apply the job priority to form a new target date. For example, if you have a attribute called Void Collect Keys with a date of 01/01/19 and your job has a priority of 20 days, the Job Target Date will be moved to 20/01/19
Submit Version - This will submit the open version of a job before it moves to the next transition. This can be useful after your review stages where a lot of versions are generated to make job amendments. Create Version - This will create a new version of the job, if you have a stage in your workflow where users always need to make job amendments this can speed up the process because it will take the user to a new version automatically. Note: You can only have one of the version settings active per transition. If you want to create a version the submit version option will not be available.
Create Invoice - This will automatically create the invoice number on the job cost tab
GRN Activities - Job activities can be turned into a purchase order for subcontractor payments. The purchase order will be generated by selecting the relevant activities on a job before using the create PO button. This is a manual task but the GRN Activities toggle will allow a Goods Receipt to automatically generate for completed activities attached to a PO. If the activities are less than 100% the Goods receipt will need to be created manually. This functionality will make it easier to generate the subcontractor orders so they know what work to do and how much they can invoice for. More information regarding this functionality can be found in our help centre article on Activity Purchase Orders

Once the Transitions have been created they will appear next to the Job Status on the main Workflow screen. If you need to go back and edit the Transition click on the transition name (blue link). To delete the transition scroll to the bottom of the edit panel to the Delete button at the bottom.

You can add more the one Transition per step to allow jobs to move to a different status. (e.g. Quote Approved could be transition 1 and Quote Rejected could be transition 2)

Once you have completed the Workflow you can publish the process. Until it has been published it will not be used on live jobs.