Arbor Workflows: Publishing a Workflow (Go Live)

How can I publish changes I have made to a Workflow? 

Once you're happy with the changes you've made to your workflow, it's time to Go Live.

Going Live creates a new version of the workflow with your updates. To do this, just click the green Review & Test button in the upper right-hand corner.

If you have Issue within the workflow the Issue Checker will show you these and you to fix them. you will not be able to continue until these are fixed. For more information on the Issue Checker, check out this article: Arbor Workflows: Issue Checker

Test Workflow

Here, you have the option to ‘Test Workflow’ or to ‘Go Live’. It is important to test your workflow before publishing. You can use our handy Testing a Workflow guide to help with this.

Version History

Each time you publish the changes you've made, they will be recorded in your Version History. This log keeps track of all past versions of the workflow. 

Workflow Name

You can add a name for your workflow here. Ensure it's both clear and concise, as this name will be how your workflow is displayed in the workflow index. Learn a bit more about this with our Naming a Workflow article. Think of this as your Workflow Title.

Name for Workflow Run (Details shown with each run)

You should also give a name to the workflow run. Arbor Workflows will use this name when viewing in View workflow runs and My Tasks pages, and it will also be included in any email invitations.

You have the option to dynamically set workflow names by using data collected during the workflow run. This can be done using Dynamic data, similar to how you reference data in other parts of the workflow.

For instance, consider a scenario where you're running an expense claim workflow. In this case, the workflow name could logically be the employee's name along with the amount of their expense. You can reference the data collected (from the trigger form) to set the workflow name when it's running. For more details about tagging information, refer to Adding Dynamic data.

Additional information

Similar to setting a workflow name, you can also configure up to four workflow labels. These provide an effective way to include extra contextual information within a workflow, as the chosen data will be displayed on the View Workflow runs page.

You can use Dynamic Data to select the data you want to be visible. 

Workflow PDFs

The next crucial step is ensure your 'Which documents should be available on the run?' area is completed. These can be PDFs of steps within your workflow or documents that are uploaded into it. We recommend adding any documents you want to be surfaced easily to this area, as these will be pulled out of your workflow run and deposited into an area on your View Workflow Run page. 

Select the into the bar to open the drop-down menu which will include the steps of your workflow.

Select the documents you want to include, which will be within the step number that relates to where they are collected or produced, if a PDF. 

Rollout (Which schools can use this workflow?)

You can configure which schools you want to be able to trigger your workflow.  If you are an individual school, this will only show your school, whereas if you are part of a MAT or Group of Schools, this will show the organisations available to you. As shown below, you can use the toggle next to each organisation to select or deselect them. 

For example, if there are seven schools where this workflow will be used for expense claims, you can turn on the workflow for only those schools. Other schools may have a different process, in which case, you can leave the workflow off for them. 

If circumstances change, you can adjust the active organisations for the workflow at any time here. If you are adjusting the organisations in which this is deployed, ensure you have refreshed the selection by selecting the refresh button.

Who can manage this workflow

Within Arbor Workflows, there are three distinct roles: Editor, Manager, and Follower.

From here, you are able to assign these roles for all workflow runs.  This feature proves especially useful when you need to share information, such as including a school's business manager as a follower for all requisition orders. 

You can add People and Roles, and can use the Person or Role search bar to find the relevant information.

Once you have selected the Person or Role, you will need to select what level of access they have and if you want that user to be notified that they have been added as a Follower or Manager of the workflow or not.

From here, you will see the Person or Role populated below.

You will have the added functionality to edit these permissions. Select the 'Edit' button to change this.

From here you are ready to publish your workflow and make it available. 

The following article will also support publishing and rolling out your workflow: Launching Your Arbor Workflow: How to Share and Embed for Staff

It is important to 'Go Live' with your workflow whenever you make changes to ensure these are reflected in the live running of the workflow.