Create a workflow - Data360_Govern - Preview

You can include conditions in the workflow so that the relevant parties are notified when an end user takes a specified action, giving approvers the opportunity to approve or reject the change.

By default, there are no pre-built workflows in Data360 Govern.

This list describes some common workflow types:

• Ad-hoc request - A workflow that deals with any request related to data access, a data issue or a specific governance inquiry. The request is sent to the responsible party for review. The reviewer will then decide on the validity of the request.
• Change business term - A workflow that deals with requests to change a business term. The request is sent to the relevant person to confirm the validity. Once the validity of the request has been approved, the change is processed by the relevant administrator.
• New business term - A workflow that deals with requests to add a new business term. The request is sent to the responsible party for review. If the request is valid, the data governance analyst who received the request can add the term to the system.
• Certification - A workflow that ascertains whether an asset within the glossary meets the governance criteria set out by your organization. For example, verifying expected metadata or levels of ownership on a selected asset.

Workflow process overview

1. An Administrator creates a workflow based on your organization's governance requirements
2. Workflow is triggered by an event, for example when a user adds or edits an asset.
3. The item passes through the workflow steps and responsible parties are notified.
4. The workflow is completed when the item has passed through all necessary steps and any required approvals have been made.

Build a new workflow

To access the Workflow page, go to Configuration > Workflows. From here, you can build a new workflow.

Alternatively, you can clone an existing workflow as the basis for a new workflow. See Cloning an existing workflow for details about how to do this.

1. Click the Add button in the top right corner of the Workflow Types panel to create a new workflow.

   From this panel, you can also edit, clone, delete, view or monitor a workflow by clicking the relevant icon to the right of the selected item.

2. In the New Workflow Type panel, type a Name for the workflow, for example "Business Term Change".

   The first few steps of creating a workflow require you to specify a trigger i.e. an event or an action that when carried out by an end user initiates the workflow.

3. From the Change Type list, select a workflow trigger. For example, to initiate a workflow each time a new Business Term is added, select Item Added. See below for more information on the triggers that you can select when building a workflow.

4. In the Object Type list, select the item type to which you want to relate the workflow. For example, select Business Asset::Business Term if you want the workflow to be triggered when a user adds a new Business Term. Only objects that can be scored are available for the Score Changed trigger, for example, Business Assets, Technical Assets, Rules, Policies and Models.

   If you select Schedule, Action, Business Asset, Technical Asset, Model, Reference List and Rule object types are available.

5. If Score Changed is used, select the appropriate Score Type. Only score types allocated to the selected object type are available. This option is not available for other triggers.

6. If Schedule is used, select the Run Interval. Choose from:

   • Daily (default)
   • Hourly

   Note: The daily or hourly run interval settings define how often the workflow is queued to execute. The job that runs to see if there are any scheduled workflows to execute, takes place every 15 minutes. The actual time of execution, however, depends on whether other workflows may be running. This means that if, for example, you have scheduled a workflow to run hourly, the queue will be set on the hour, and then will be executed up to 15 minutes later.
   • Select the Run Frequency. This represents the duration of the schedule, for example, 14 days. If the Run Interval is set to Daily, the maximum is 365. If the Run Interval is set to Hourly, the maximum is 72. If you need more than 72 hours, use Daily. Only integers of 1 or greater can be entered.

   • Under Run Days, select the days on which you want to run the workflow. At least one day must be selected. Existing scheduled workflows default to selecting all of the days of the week.

   Note: If you have to run a scheduled workflow on an ad-hoc basis, navigate to the workflow page and clear the last executed time. The workflow will then run again within 15 minutes.
7. If you want to specify that your workflow should only be triggered in very specific situations, you can add Conditions by clicking the Add button in the Conditions panel:

   

   Select a field to apply the condition to. Note that you cannot select the following field types when applying workflow conditions: Tag, JSON, JSON Attribute, Ownership Lookup, Relation Lookup, Asset Path, Field from Relationship, Reference Item List from Relationship, Relationship and Score.

   The Governance score and the Data quality score are available for Score Changed, Item Changed, Request Certification and Schedule trigger conditions and conditional transitions only. See Transitions for more details.

   Depending on the selected field type, a number of operators are available to choose from. See below for more details of the different operators.

   If a previous Form step in a workflow has an HTML field, then it is available in conditional transitions, with "is populated" and "is not populated" operators available. If a workflow Form HTML field is used in a conditional transition, then whether you make an entry or not in the HTML field when completing the workflow form, will determine if the workflow moves on to the next step.

   You can also select a Link field type, as well as a form List field type, for conditional transitions, with "is populated" and "is not populated" operators available. When the "is populated" operator is selected, the workflow will only be triggered if the specified field has a value. If the "is not populated" operator is selected, the workflow will only transition to the next step if the specified field does not have a value.

   If you add more than one condition to a workflow, you can choose from these triggering conditions:

   • Satisfy all - The workflow is triggered only when all the listed conditions are met.
   • Satisfy any - The workflow is triggered when any of the listed conditions are met.
8. Ensure that the Active check box is ticked if you want the workflow to be active when it is first published. The default is for a new workflow to be active. To change this, and make the workflow initially inactive, click to uncheck the Active check box.
9. Click Next.

   Once you have established a workflow trigger, you can begin building your workflow. Every workflow must have a Start activity, a Finish activity, and at least one additional activity that occurs between the start and finish. See Workflow Activities for details of the available activities.

10. Build your workflow by dragging the required activities from the left of the screen into the workflow editing area. For details of the available activities, see Workflow Activities.
11. To connect workflow activities, click and drag from a point on one activity to connect it to a point on the next. If you need to go back and delete a connection, select the connection that you want to remove, then press Delete.

Workflow activities

Every workflow must have a Start activity, a Finish activity, and at least one additional activity that occurs between the start and finish. Activities are connected to each other with transitions. For more information, see Transitions.

You can choose from these activities when creating your workflow:

• Start
• Finish
• Terminate
• Email notification
• Form
• SQL Procedure
• Field Change
• Relationship Change
• HTTP Request
• HTTP Response

Start

Marks the entry into the workflow. Every workflow must include a Start activity

Finish

Marks the successful completion of the workflow. Every workflow must include a Finish activity

Terminate

Marks the unsuccessful completion of the workflow.

Email Notification

Sends an email notification to a specific role or person.

When configuring the Email Notification activity, you can use tokens as placeholders to add text to the body or subject of the email by selecting an option from the Append field value list.

Form

Provides a custom form that is inserted into the workflow giving a reviewer the opportunity to certify an action.

SQL Procedure

Reserved for use by Precisely Implementation Specialists. The Precisely team will write a custom procedure to handle complex functionality. If you want to use this activity, please contact your Precisely representative to discuss your requirements.

Field Change

You can use a Field Change activity to update the value of a field in one or more assets. The new values can be specified in the Field Change activity, or be taken from values given in an earlier Form activity. You can use a Field Change activity to change the value of a field that has been defined with Is Editable? set to false.

To set up a Field Change activity:

1. Select and drag a Field Change activity into the workflow editing area, and connect it into your workflow.
2. Optionally, enter a name for the activity.
3. Click Add to add a change.
4. Select a field from the drop-down. The drop-down contains a list of the fields belonging to the Object Type that the workflow relates to. If you are adding the activity to an Action Type workflow, the list also contains fields from the Issue Object Type for the workflow.
5. Choose how the new field value is determined.
   • Enter a value - use this option to enter a new value for the field. The field type determines the possible values that you can enter. For example, if the field type is List, you can choose from the available list values. If the field type is Html/Richtext, you can add text with HTML styling.
   • Append selected values? - this option is available only when the field type is List and multiple list items are allowed. If this option is ticked, the selected values will be appended to the currently selected items for the field. If the option is not ticked, the selection replaces the current values for the field.
   • Choose a form result value - this option is available if a previous step in the workflow is a form. You can choose from values entered in form fields where the form field type matches the type of the field you are changing.
   • Choose an action field - this option is available in an Action Type workflow. Use this option to update the field value with the content of a field that is present in the Action Type. You can choose from values entered in action type fields where the action type field type matches the type of the field you are changing.
   • Clear the field value - use this option to remove the current value from the field.

For example, you can use the Field Change activity to update the status of an item in a certification workflow.

Relationship Change

Use the Relationship Change activity to replace, append, or remove relationships from an asset.

To add a Relationship Change activity to a workflow:

1. Add a Form activity to the workflow.
2. Add a relationshipType field to the form.
3. Add a Relationship Change activity to the workflow.
4. Connect the Form activity to the Relationship Change activity.
5. Select the Relationship Change activity, and click Edit.
6. Optionally, enter a name to be displayed on the activity in the workflow.
7. For the Relationship Form Field, select the relationshipType field you added to the form.
8. Choose whether to append to, clear, or replace existing relationships, by using the available tick boxes.
   • If Append relationships? is ticked, the workflow adds the form relationship to the asset. If the cardinality of the relationship is 1:1, and a relationship already exists on the asset, then the relationship on the asset is replaced by the relationship from the form if this option is selected.
   • If Clear relationships? is ticked, the workflow removes the form relationship from the asset.
   • If both boxes are unticked, the existing relationship on the asset is replaced by the relationship from the form.

HTTP Request

Allows you to connect to an external API from within a workflow.

HTTP Response

You can add a HTTP Response activity to a HTTP Request workflow to extract JSON-based properties from the API.

Transitions

Transitions connect workflow activities. You can define transitions so that they always trigger the next workflow step, or apply a condition or a timer to the transition to control whether or when the next step is triggered.

To view information about a transition, click the transition in the workflow editing area. To edit the transition, click the Edit icon in the transition information dialog.

You can choose from these transition types:

Always

The next step in the workflow is immediately triggered. This is the default value.

Condition

The next step in the workflow is triggered when one or more conditions are satisfied. You can use conditional transitions to determine different paths that the workflow could take, depending on whether or not those conditions are satisfied.

If you add more than one condition, all of the conditions must be met for the next workflow step to be triggered.

To configure a Condition transition:

1. In the transition information dialog, set the Transition Type to Condition.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Choose a Field that the condition will be checked against. The list of available fields is determined by the Object Type that the workflow applies to, and form fields from the workflow.
4. Choose the Operator that will be used to test the condition.
5. Enter a Value for which the condition is satisfied.

For example, in this workflow, an Email Notification that the form has not been approved is sent when an assignee completes Form 1, and they have marked the "Do you approve?" form field as false.

When you create conditional transitions, ensure that all conditions are accounted for. For example, in the workflow above, Form 1 triggers an Email Notification if the form is approved, and a different Email Notification if the form is not approved. In both cases, the workflow then finishes, and there are no possible values other than = and !=, so the workflow will always complete.

Timer

You can use the Timer condition to delay execution of the next workflow step for a number of days. This can be used, for example, to send a reminder email to an assignee if they have not completed a form that has been assigned to them.

The image shows an example workflow containing a timer transition.

When the "Form 1" step is triggered, the assignee receives the form. If they have not completed the form after two days, the "Email Reminder" step is triggered, and an email is sent to the assignee, reminding them to complete the form.

Delete

Deletes an asset.

Clone an existing workflow

If you want to create a new workflow that is similar to one you've already created, for example if you want to test modifications without changing an existing workflow, you can clone an existing workflow rather than creating a new one.

1. Go to the Workflow page by navigating to Configuration > Workflow.
2. In the Workflow Types panel, find the workflow you want to clone.
3. Click the Copy icon in the corresponding row to make a copy of the workflow.
4. In the New Workflow Type panel, the workflow name is filled in and selected. The name is the name of the workflow you are cloning, appended with '(Copy)'.
5. From here you can make changes to your new workflow the same as you would if you were editing a workflow.
   Note: The new workflow is created when you click the Copy icon. If you click Cancel in the New Workflow Type panel, the new workflow will be listed as an unpublished workflow in the Workflow Types panel.
6. Type a new name for your workflow, and update the Change type and Object type fields as required.
7. Choose whether or not the workflow should be active when it is first published, by checking or unchecking the Active check box. The initial value will be the same as the value for the workflow you are cloning. A warning message is displayed if there are pending workflow items.
8. Click Next.
9. Modify your workflow steps as required. As the new workflow is created as an unpublished workflow you need to click Publish to publish the workflow, or you can click Save to save it as an unpublished workflow.

Edit a workflow

To edit an existing workflow:

1. Go to Configuration > Workflow.
2. In the Workflow Types panel, find the workflow you want to clonedit.
3. Click the Edit icon in the corresponding row to edit the workflow.
4. From here you can make changes to your new workflow. Click Next when you have finished making changes.
5. Next, modify your workflow steps as required. As the new workflow is created as an unpublished workflow you need to click Publish to publish the workflow, or you can click Save to save it as an unpublished workflow.

Active and inactive workflows

In Data360 Govern, workflows can be active or inactive. The default is for new workflows to be active, but you can change this value to make a new workflow inactive when you are creating it.

If you try to change the status of an existing workflow from active to inactive, a warning is displayed if there are pending workflow items associated with the workflow. Pending workflow items can still be completed while the workflow is inactive, but no new workflow items will be created. All published versions of the workflow are deactivated when a workflow is changed from active to inactive.

To see whether a workflow is active or inactive, go to Configuration > Workflows.