Forms-centric workflow on OSGi

Open the Workflow Models console. The default URL is https://[Server]:[port]/libs/cq/workflow/admin/console/content/models.html/etc/workflow/models

Select Create, then Create Model. The Add Workflow Model dialog appears.

Enter the Title and Name (optional). For example, a mortgage application. Tap Done.

Select the newly created workflow model and tap Edit. Now, you can add workflow steps to build business logic. When you first create a workflow model, it contains:

• The steps: Flow Start and Flow End. These steps represent the beginning and end of the workflow. These steps are required and cannot be edited or removed.
• An example Participant step named Step 1. This step is configured to assign a work item to the admin user. Remove this step.

Enable email notifications. You can configure Forms-centric workflow on OSGi to send email notifications to the users or assignees. Perform the following configurations to enable email notifications:

1. Go to AEM configuration manager at https://[server]:[port]/system/console/configMgr.
2. Open the Day CQ Mail Service configuration. Specify a value for the SMTP server host name, SMTP server port, and “From” address fields. Click Save.
3. Open the Day CQ Link Externalizer configuration. In the Domains field, specify the actual hostname/IP address and port number for local, author, and publish instances. Click Save.

Create workflow stages. A workflow can have multiple stages. These stages are displayed in the AEM Inbox and report progress of the workflow.

To define a stage, tap the icon to open workflow model properties, open the Stages tab, add stages for the workflow model, and tap Save & Close. For the example mortgage application, create stages: loan request, loan request status, to be signed documents, and signed loan document.

Drag-and-drop the Assign Task steps browser to the workflow model. Make it the first step of the model.

The assign task component assigns the task, created by workflow, to a user or group. Along with assigning the task, you can use the component to specify an adaptive form or a non-interactive PDF for the task. The adaptive form is required to accept input from users and non-interactive PDF or a read-only adaptive form is used for review only workflows.

You can also use the step to control the behavior of the task. For example, creating an automatic document of record, assign the task to a specific user or group, the path of the submitted data, the path of data to be pre-populated, and default actions. For detailed information about the options of the assign task step, see Forms-centric workflow on OSGi - Step Reference document.

For the mortgage application example, configure the assign task step to use a Read-only adaptive form and display PDF Document once the task is complete. Also, select to user group allowed to approve the loan request. On the Actions tab, disable the Submit option. Specify a Route Variable. For example, actionTaken. Also, add the Approve and Reject routes. The routes are displayed as separate actions (buttons) in AEM Inbox. The workflow selects a branch based on the action (button) a user taps.

You can import the example package, available for download in the starting of the section, for the complete set of values of all the fields of the assign task step configured for example mortgage application.

Drag-and-drop the OR Split component from step browser to the workflow model. The OR Split creates a split in the workflow, after which only one branch is active. This step enables you to introduce conditional processing paths into your workflow. You add workflow steps to each branch as required.

Open properties of the OR Split and add the following code snippets to Branch1 and Branch2. These code snippets help choose a branch based on the user action in AEM Inbox.

Code snippet for Branch 1

When a user taps Approve in AEM Inbox, Branch 1 is activated.

function check(){
   var action = workflowData.getMetaDataMap().get("actionTaken","");
log.info("action " + action);
   return action=="Approve";
}

Code snippet for Branch 2

When a user taps Reject in AEM Inbox, Branch 2 is activated.

function check(){
   var action = workflowData.getMetaDataMap().get("actionTaken","");
log.info("action " + action);
   return action=="Reject";
}

Add other workflow steps to build the business logic.

For the mortgage example, add a generate document of record, two assign task steps, and a sign document step to Branch 1 of the model, as displayed in the image below. One assign task step is to display and send to be signed loan documents to the applicant and another assign task component is to display signed documents. Also, add an assign task component to branch 2. It is activated, when a user taps Reject in AEM Inbox.

For the complete set of values of all the fields of the assign task steps, document of record step, and sign document step configured for example mortgage application, import the example package, available for download in the starting of this section.

The workflow model is ready. You can launch the workflow through various methods. For details, see Launch a Forms-centric workflow on OSGi.