Workflow

Last updated February 19, 2013. Created by verta on August 3, 2010.
Edited by NancyDru, ShaneOnABike. Log in to edit this page.

The Workflow Module

Project page: http://drupal.org/project/workflow

This is a stub page for documentation of the Workflow module.

A Workflow is made up of workflow states.

Moving from one state to another is called a transition.

Actions are associated with transitions (actions.module was used for this in Drupal 5; core actions support is in Drupal 6). You may also use the Rules module to react to transitions and states.

Alex Reisner introduced role-based permissions for workflow states and generally enhanced this module.

INSTALLATION

1. Place the entire workflow directory into your Drupal sites/all/modules directory.
2. Enable the workflow module by navigating to:
   Administer > Site building > Modules
   Enabling the Workflow module will create the necessary database tables for you.
3. The Workflow Admin UI modules is required to create and configure Workflows.
4. If you want anyone besides the administrative user to be able to configure workflows (usually a bad idea), they must be given the "administer workflow" access permission:
   Administer > User management > Permissions

   When the module is enabled and the user has the "administer workflow" permission, a "Workflow" menu should appear in the menu system under Administer -> Site building.

   You may also allow only some users to schedule transitions in the future. Select the "schedule workflow transitions" permission to allow transitions.

5. You may limit whic roles show up in the workflow edit screen by using the "Participate in workflow" permission.
   Administer > User management > Permissions

GETTING STARTED

Note: Recent changes to the admin UI have affected these instructions a bit. You should still be able to find your way around though.

• Let's create a new workflow. Click on Administer -> Site building -> Workflow and click on the "Add workflow" tab.
• We'll start simple. Call our workflow "Draft-Done" and click Add Workflow.
• Now lets add some workflow states to our workflow. Click "add state" and enter "draft" and click the Add State button. Do the same for "done".
• So we've got a workflow with two states, "draft" and "done". Now we have to tell each state which other states it can move to. With only two states, this is easy.
• Click on the "edit" link of the newly created Workflow to edit the workflow and see its state transitions.
• The "From / To -->" column lists all states. To the right are columns for each state. Within each cell is a list of roles with checkboxes.
• This is confusing. It's easiest to understand if you read rows across from the left. For example, we start with the creation state. Who may move a node from its creation state to the "draft" state? Well, the author of the node, for one. So check the "author" checkbox.
• Who may move the node from the "draft" state to the "done" state? This is up to you. If you want authors to be able to do this, check the "author" checkbox under the "done" state. If you had another role, say "editor", that you wanted to give the ability to decree a node as "done", you'd check the checkbox next to the "editor" role and not the author role. In this scenario authors would turn in drafts and editors would say when they are "done".
• Be sure to click the Save button to save your settings.
• Now let's tell Drupal which node types should use this workflow. Click on Administer -> Site building -> Workflow. Let's assign the Draft-Done workflow to the story node type and click Save Workflow Mapping.
• Now we could add an action (previously configured using the trigger module). Click on the Actions link above your workflow. Add the action to the transition.
• Now create a new story by going to Create content -> Story. If there is no sign of a workflow interface here, don't panic. The interface is only displayed if there is more than one state to which the user can move the node (why bother the user with a form with only one selection?) Click Submit to create the story.
• You can see the state the node is in and the history of state changes by clicking on the Workflow tab while viewing a node.
• Changing the state to "done" and clicking Submit will fire the action you set up earlier.