Workflow Question

[invantix]

I have a space that has typical sub spaces for workflow. These include Drafts, Pending Approval, Approved, and Published. 

When "Request Approval" is selected in drafts, the document is MOVED to the "Pending Approval" space.

When "Approve" is selected the doc is MOVED to "Approved" space which has a rule that transforms to PDF and COPPIES it to Published.

At the end there is a word doc in approved and a PDF in Published.  This is pretty straight forward and all works fine.

Now I want to update the document (I have versioning on at the root of these spaces)  I want the users to go to the Approved space and edit the document and have it end up in drafts when they save it (without them thinking about it). In other words I don’t want them to have to do save as.

Thanks,
Chris.

[rbelisle]

So do you want a new document in drafts or move the document from Approved to drafts?

If you want a new document, you could create a rule that copies a document post save from the approved folder to the drafts folder. Only issue I see there is that you would have the new version in both spots (ie. version 1 was in the approved folder, edited and saved back as version 2, now copy and if someone looks in the 'approved' folder, then they will see the edited version by default not the version 1, or the  approved version (not sure if that sentence even makes sense!) There are ways around this, but would take some custom programming.

Hopefully you just want to move the doc… much easier. Just create a rule that runs on update and moves the document back to drafts when it is changed… again, the only thing is that update fires if you change content or attributes, so even if someone just changed the name on the doc, it would be moved…

So if you can give some guidelines on exactly the behaviour you are looking for, might be able to better provide some input.

[invantix]

So do you want a new document in drafts or move the document from Approved to drafts?
…
So if you can give some guidelines on exactly the behavior you are looking for, might be able to better provide some input.

I want them to work on the approved doc but have the checked out version exist at the beginning of the workflow which is the drafts space. I want to leave the approved version in the approved space until the new draft makes it through the workflow.  I don't want the changes to show up in the approved space doc until they are approved. 

I want to do what requires minimal thinking for the user. I want them to check out and edit the doc and when they save it ends up in drafts, then they can request approval and if approved the new version ends up in approved and published with the same title and version history.

Currently when you do a check out the system asks "Where do you want to keep the copy of this file?" I would rather skip this message and just move it to drafts and open it.

Also, the file ends up with at title file name (working copy) and if they request approval before checking it in, we end up with two files. Is there a way to modify the request approval rule to check in the file before moving it to the "pending approvals" space?

I am just not sure where to start.  Do I need to either change some code or create a script that executes all the steps? Is this a rule, java script, template, JSP code???

Am I making this more complicated than necessary? I am looking to make it simple for the users. My user population has limited skills and having them make these decisions will lead to multiple files. If anyone knows a better way to make this workflow "fool" proof please let me know. I believe this would be one of the most common scenarios, "approval workflow with versioning for dummies".

I am going to want this behavior in all the spaces that require approvals. They will all have drafts, pending, approved, and published.

Thanks,

Chris