Enhancing OCM Document OIC workflow process with an integrated Assets UX
Today unfortunately OCM does not have an integrated managed workflow experience for Documents unlike Assets; if you need to use tools like the Oracle Desktop sync with integrated workflows then you'll need to use the human task management capabilities from within Oracle Integration Cloud to approve or decline tasks... this comes with it's own challenges ie users can unknowingly move and modify create new document versions that are in active workflows.
With that said working with a colleague; we recently created the ability to move documents to a secured workflow folder and throw these across into assets as a digital asset type document link - enabling a streamlined integrated workflow experience from within assets that allows reviewers to review and approve documents without the need to leave and go into OIC human task document approval step.
We've also enabled an integration to display any errors with the experiences capabilities in OCM - enabling an embedded OIC process to display any caught errors ie connection to API's that help enable transfer of documents through the process and can be assisted by administrators to review any caught errors and push the assets back into an active process flow state.
Talk me through the magic
Initialising the workflow
As a desktop user I can drop a document into my OCM Desktop sync workflow folder or create subfolders that will inherit the workflow process - when a document is added of modified. I could also drop the document into the documents folder within the browser to initialise the flow.
Documents Workflow part 1.
When the document hits the workflow a few things happen..
First the document is moved out of its active folder and into a secured workflow folder that I have configured for admins to manage and editors to view.
Next a stub file is created with the same name as the original asset with the extension .json to notify the user that the document is now held within an active workflow process.
And finally the document is copied as an active associated document link into assets where it triggers the next step for Human Task review and approval within the OCM Integrated workflow interface.
Assets Workflow part 2
Once the document has been copied as an associated link doc into assets; our second workflow is then triggered - this notifies the reviewers that they have an active asset in workflow that is waiting to be approved.
If the asset is approved as part of the exit flow we delete the asset and trigger the document flow to complete the next step of document approval.
Documents Workflow part3
We now remove the stub and move the document out of our custom workflow folder and back to it's original location.
FAQs
Some thoughts and things we have done behind the scenes you may be asking..
What if a document is in an workflow and you drag the same document into the same folder?
We have a few options available for this but to keep the user experience of a filesystem - we have a check to see if the document is in active workflow - if it is we rename the document ie to myActiveDoc(2).docx adding the standard experience of creating a copy of the document. "(2)" and incrementing it if needed.
Can you handle a mass drag and drop of folder and files in the OCM desktop sync
Yes, not a problem you can drag in a folder structure with documents and it will streamline and initiate workflow process on all the documents added
What happens if there are any errors with the flow
We have an integrated OCM Admin Experience that displays the issues and allows admins to fix the issue and repush the asset back into its process.
How do you manage version control.
When updating a document to it's next version will autotrigger the same asset flow as above.
Check out the latest video demo in a recent post:
