How-to: invoice approval workflow

This help article is intended to familiarize yourself quickly with the new web based Workflow Designer.

Incoming invoices are quickly and accurately processed with a document-based approval workflow. In automating the process you eliminate paper and manual data entry and you make sure that early payment discounts can be reclaimed.

Here is a basic example how an invoice approval workflow could work:

An incoming invoice is routed depending on the amount:
1. Invoices with amounts higher than a certain sum, for example 10,000, go to the head of department.
2. All other invoices are for the team leads.
The head of department / team lead approves or reject the invoice.
1. All approved invoices move on to a payment workflow.
2. Invoices rejected by the head of department are sent to the end of the workflow for further investigating.
3. Invoices rejected by the team lead are sent to the head of department for an additional check.

See in the screenshot below how this invoice approval workflow looks like after is is created in web based Workflow Designer:

Now learn how to create this basic invoice approval workflow with DocuWare web based Workflow Designer.

Create a new workflow

Go to DocuWare Configuration > Collaboration.
Click on the icon Workflow Designer to open the Workflow Designer dashboard.
On the dashboard, hit the New Workflow button.
Select the file cabinet in which the incoming invoices are to be stored.
Add a name for the workflow configuration. Keep in mind that this name is visibile to the employee in the Web Client. LINK!!!
Confirm with Create to bring up the Workflow Designer canvas.

Set workflow permissions and trigger

You are looking at the competely designed invoice approval workflow. In this chaptre, you will create the red marked action:

On the Workflow Designer canvas, the fist action is “Start”. Note: The Start action is always inserted automatically.

Enter a controller permission and a trigger. Both are required.

The first workflow action is always “Start”.

1 Enter controller credentials

Each workflow requires a DocuWare user which acts as workflow controller. The workflow controller may handle workflow errors or stop and restart the workflow, among others.

Find more information about the roles of the Workflow Controller and Workflow Designer in the help of the previous Workflow Designer.

Enter a workflow controller and Authorize.

2 Define a trigger

Each workflow requires a trigger, that initiates the automated action. There are two types of a workflow trigger:

Document event
Schedule

Check the tabs for more information or proceed with the how-to below the tabs.

Document event

Schedule

Example for a document event are the storing of a document in a file cabinet or the change of index data of an already archived document.

In addition to that, you need to define specific index values for the triggering document, which need to be met for the workflow to start.

The workflow is executed according to a schedule in connection with specific index data.

A workflow can be executed:

daily or on specified days
weekly or in specified weeks
monthly or in specified months

In addition, you define which conditions must be met for the index data of the triggering document so that the workflow is executed according to the schedule defined above.

Select the trigger Document event > New document as shown below in the screenshot:

Workflow trigger options for document management, highlighting the 'Store' trigger type.

In the trigger dialog, click Set trigger requirements to define the type of the documents to be processed in the workflow.
Enter two conditions:
1. The first condition ensures that all new stored documents are taken into account for the workflow:
  - System Index Field “Document ID”
  - Operator IS NOT EMPTY
2. The second condition ensures that only those new documents will be processed, which are tagged as an invoice:
  - Index field “Document type”
  - Operator is “Equal”
  - Fixed value is “Invoice”
This is how the trigger settings looks like in the Workflow Designer:

Done. You are finished with the permissions and the trigger.

Get invoice amount checked

You are looking at the competely designed invoice approval workflow. In this chaptre, you will create the red marked action:

To route the invoices to the specific employee or role in the company, use an action of the type “Condition” like a switch:

Invoices with an amount higher than 10.000 are routed automatically to the head of department, all other invoices to the team lead.

Enter a new Action of the type Condition. Find the actions in the left sidebar of the canvas:
Set as first condition:
- Index Field: “Amount”
- Operator “Greater Than”
- Fixed Value “10000”
Set as second condition:
- Index Field: “Amount”
- Operator “Less Than Or Equal”
- Fixed Value “10000”
In the Action > Condition dialog, go to the Tab Outputs to change the default “True” and “False” outputs (see also in the previous screenshot above) to more meaningful terms.

Renaming is not required but is makes the configuration easier to track.
You may also restyle the colors of the outputs – here form green/red to blue/yellow.

Proceed with Next > No error handling > Done.

Routing the invoices to the head of department or the teamlead happens automatically – without any user action in the Web Client needed.

Add a task for invoice approval or rejection

You are looking at the competely designed invoice approval workflow. In this chaptre, you will create the red marked action:

In this step you create the task that the users have to complete in the Web Client. The task is either to approve or reject an invoice.

Note:

To shape the task sufficiently you will have two actions of the type “task” in the end. For this, you will copy the task you are creating now later – see also next chapter.

For now go with the first task:

Add an Action > Task.

A task can be specified in multiple ways. Just follow the tabs Method - Decision - Data - Behaviour as you can see in the screenshot below:

1. Method

Go to Method and choose Dialog.

2. Decision

Create two decisions - one for approval and one for reject.

2.1 Decision for approval

Click Add first decision:
Go to Action > Decision > General and type “Approve” as Decision title.
You may also select a color like green here - for more clarity:
Switch to the next tab Action > Decision > Dialog.
Add the fields, which the user should see in the Web Client. For this example workflow, add an integer field to show the invoice amount and an optional text field for comments.
Integer field for invoice amount:
- Field type: Integer
- Field label: Amount
- Predefined type: Document Index
- Predefined source: Amount
  
  Text field type for remarks.
- Click Add next field.
- Field type > Text
- Field label > Comment
- Leave Field is required unchecked to keep the field optional.
- With Done you switch automatically back to the Decision dialog

2.2 Decision for rejection

Back in the Dialog Action > Decision, add the next decision:
Proceed similarly to the approval decision:
Go to Action > Decision > General,
Type “Reject” as Decision title. You may also select a color like red for the rejection (optional).
Go to tab Action > Decision > Dialog.
Create two fields
Integer field for invoice amount:
- Field type: Integer
- Field label: Amount
- Predefined type: Document Index
- Predefined source: Amount
Text field for the reason of rejection:
Field type: Text
Field label: Reason
Activate Field is required
Done

3. Data

Change the status of the invoice according to decision of the employee who has accomplished the task.

With this you make sure that the invoice can be processed further. For example, a payment workflow might be triggered by the status field with the entry “approved”.

Here is how you switch the index field “status” of the approved invoice from “new” to “approved”:

Go to Action > Data:

Set data assignment
Add first assignment
- Destination type > Document index
- Destination entry > Status - These are the index fields of the file cabinet
- Source type > Fixed value
- Source entry: Approved
Done

Here is how you switch the index field “status” of the rejected invoice from “new” to “Rejected”:

Set data assignment
Add first assignment
Destination type > Document index
Destination entry > Status
Source type > Fixed value
Source entry: Rejected
Done

4. Behavior

You can configure notifications, which are sent to the user to notify or remind him to accomplish a task.

In this example, there is no notification used.

Decision maker

A decision maker is the user who accomplishes the task in the Web Client.

Click on Decision makers in the task dialog and Choose users or roles.

We added “Head of department” here.

Done

Copy task for approval or rejection

You are looking at the competely designed invoice approval workflow. In this chaptre, you will create the red marked action:

As you see in the screenshot above you need two tasks for approval or rejection as the incoming invoices are routed to different user groups, which both can approve and reject.

Here is how you create the task for the second user group:

Duplicate the task you have created in the previous step.

Then, apply some changes to the second, copied task:

Change the decision maker from head of department to the team lead role.
Optionally you can switch the color and the name of the task.

Connect the workflow actions

Finally, connect the workflow actions.

Grab the output ports and drag the connectors to the input ports.

See how it can be done in the animated gif: