Does Comala Workflow work for our use-case?

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

Hi everybody!

We are currently investigating in the Comala Workflow plugin to map some simple workflows into Confluence. We have the following use-case:

1. Human resources department creates an application for a new employee with firstname, lastname, entry date
2. Application is assigned to head of department
3. Head of department defines an existing employee (i.e. LDAP user) who acts as a "template" for the new user
4. Application is assigned to IT department

Could this procedure be created in some way with the Comala Workflow plugin? If so, what would the steps be?

Thank you in advance!

Felix [Scandio]

[Miguel Reimer · Accepted solution]

Hi Felix,

Yes workflows can definitely help with that, we could even possibly have the user to compare to selected in the workflow itself.

Without choosing the compare user in the workflow, it might look something like this:

{workflow}
{state:Assign to Head of Department|approved=Assign to IT}
{approval=Head of Department|selectedapprover=head1, head2, head3}
{state}
{state:Assign to IT|approved=Done}
{approval=IT|group=IT Department}
{state}
{state:Done|final=true}
{state}
{workflow}

So creating the page will have the workflow start in the first state where the human resources user would assign to the appropriate head of department.  Once they receive the notification, they would add the compare user to the page, then approve approval to change to the IT state.  When changing into the IT state, we could send an email to the users who need to do something or even just assign it to one user in IT.  Then when IT is done, they approve the approval and it changes to Done.

I might suggest though that if there is multiple IT steps or HR steps, they should be added to the workflow to ensure everything is done and see the current status.

Thanks,
Miguel

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

Thank you very much for now, Miguel! I will experiment with this workflow next week and give you feedback :)

[Miguel Reimer]

Hi Felix,

Not entirely sure about the creating of an application or users being templates for the new user, but Comala Workflows can definitely help with the assigning part.

Could you re-frame the use case in terms of how it might work in Confluence and what you were hoping the workflow could do?  ie. create a page from a template, approval would be assigned to head of department who then reviews and approves page, then in next state assigns to IT department, etc

That will give me a better idea of what you want the workflow to do and put together a workflow to get you going.

Thanks,
Miguel

PS: In the future, we recommend creating a ticket or forum post on our zendesk community.  No need to move this question there, I can answer it here, just easier for others in Comalatech to see it if its on our site.

[Felix Grund (Scandio)]

Hi Miguel,

Thank you for your message. Sure, next time I will post in your forum – I didn't know there exists a separate one.

I'm not deep into Comala Workflows yet, but I'll try to describe the requirement more in "Confluence terms". I could imagine it to work along these lines:

1. Human resources creates pages from a template in which they fill some fields for firstname,lastname, entry date
2. The page must "assigned" to head of department . I guess this could be the reviewer functionality.
3. Head of department chooses a Confluence user to whom the new user can be compared. I guess my first statement was a little misleading. The only thing here is that an existing user must be "written down" somehow. I guess the head of department would have to edit the page again and use some userpicker functionality.
4. Application is assigned to IT department. I guess this would be the reviewers functionality again.

The requirement is: the guys from human resources can be introduced in more detail in what they have to do every time there is a new employee. For the head of department guys, however, the process must be as simple as possible.

Thanks again for your help!