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Applying workflows

By default, Workplace’s workflow feature is not applied to any content created by Workplace users. When a Workplace user creates a news item (either a regular news item or one associated with a community), calendar event, or a public or private community, they are made live as soon as the user finishes the creation process.

As a Workplace system administrator, you can add workflows to your content and community creation events to help curate and manage content added to your Workplace site.

Apply a workflow to news and events

You can apply Workplace’s workflow feature to the news items feature, so that when a Workplace user 'publishes' their news item, a Workplace system administrator must change the status of their news item to Approve and Make Live for the item to be visible in your Workplace site.

To apply a workflow to the news items feature:

  1. Ensure you are logged in to Workplace as a Workplace system administrator and have accessed admin mode.

  2. In the asset map side nav on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Squiz Workplace site asset and expand its tree.

  3. Within this site asset, right-click the News asset and choose Schemas.

  4. Click Acquire locks to begin making changes.

  5. In the Workflow Schemas > Add New Schema section, select Apply from the drop-down menu.

  6. Set the Workflow Schema value to the Standard News Article Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset. To do this:

    1. Click the Workflow Schema field’s Select Asset button.

    2. In the asset map on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Workflows  Standard News Article Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset.

    3. Right-click the Standard News Article Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset and choose Use Me from the pop-up menu.

  7. Click the Commit button to save your changes.

  8. Within the same Squiz Workplace site asset tree, right-click the Calendar asset and choose Schemas, clicking Acquire locks on the resulting Schemas screen if necessary.

  9. Repeat steps four and five (above) on this Calendar asset’s Schemas screen. This process applies the workflow schema to event-type news items.

Applying workflows to community creation

As a Workplace system administrator, you can apply a workflow to community creation events to better control how freely your Workplace users can create Communities within your Workplace site.

To apply a workflow to the community news items feature:

  1. Ensure you are logged in to Workplace as a Workplace system administrator and have accessed admin mode.

  2. In the asset map side nav on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Squiz Workplace site asset and expand its tree.

  3. Within this site asset, right-click the Communities asset and choose Schemas.

  4. Click Acquire locks to begin making changes.

  5. In the Workflow Schemas > Add New Schema section, select Apply from the drop-down menu.

  6. Set the Workflow Schema value to the Standard Communities Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset. To do this:

    1. Click the Workflow Schema field’s Select Asset button.

    2. In the asset map on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Workflows  Standard Communities Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset.

  7. Right-click the Standard Communities Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset and select Use Me from the pop-up menu.

  8. Click the Commit button to save your changes.

Applying workflows to community news and events

As a Workplace system administrator, you can apply a workflow to community news and events so that you can better control how freely your Workplace community users can create and publish content within communities.

To apply a workflow to community news and event items:

  1. Ensure you are logged in to Workplace as a Workplace system administrator and have accessed admin mode.

  2. In the asset map side nav on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Squiz Workplace site asset and expand its tree.

  3. Within this site asset, right-click the Community asset and choose Schemas.

  4. Click Acquire locks to begin making changes.

  5. In the Workflow Schemas > Add New Schema section, select Apply from the drop-down menu.

  6. Set the Workflow Schema value to the Standard Community News and Events Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset. To do this:

  7. Click the Workflow Schema field’s Select Asset button.

  8. In the asset map on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Workflows  Standard Community News and Events Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset.

  9. Right-click the Standard Community News and Events Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset and choose Use Me from the pop-up menu.

  10. Click the Commit button to save your changes.

Applying custom workflows to community news and events

As a Workplace system administrator, you can apply a standard workflow to community news and events so that you can better control how freely your Workplace community users can create and publish content within communities. In some cases, you may want to customise workflows applied to communities so that you can assign different user groups to approve content only in certain community groups.

To demonstrate how this works, consider a Workplace community called “Legal Eagles” containing content that only the legal team can review before it can be published. In this example, applying the Standard Community News and Events Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema means that anyone in the Public Users or Squiz Workplace Users groups could approve content. This permission level may not provide your legal team enough editorial oversight to review specific legal content.

To create custom workflows you need to do the following things:

  • Create a custom user group and link authorised members to the user group.

  • Create a custom workflow schema from one of the standard Workplace workflow schemas.

  • Add the custom user group to the workflow schema.

  • Add the workflow schema to the community.

Create a user group to apply to the custom workflow schema

Before setting up a workflow schema to apply to a single community, you need to set up a user group to apply uniquely to a workflow schema.

To create a user group:

  1. Ensure you are logged in to Workplace as a Workplace system administrator and have accessed admin mode.

  2. In the asset map side nav on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Squiz Workplace Users user group.

  3. Right-click on the user group and select New Child  Users  User Group.

  4. Give the user group a logical name (for example, “Legal Team Workflow Approvers”), so you can easily identify its purpose.

  5. Click Commit to create the user group.

  6. On the Details screen, change the asset’s status to Approve and Make Live, and cascade the status change.

  7. Click Commit to make the user group live.

Now that you have set up a new user group, you can create or link users in your Workplace site to this user group.

  1. In admin mode, locate and expand the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Squiz Workplace Users user group.

  2. Locate a user within this user group that you want to link to the “Legal Team Workflow Approvers” user group.

  3. Right-click on the user asset and select Move / Link / Clone  New Link.

  4. Locate the “Legal Team Workflow Approvers” user group and click on the user group asset to link the user.

  5. Click Next on the HIPO job screen to add the user to the group.

  6. Continue this process to add all users into the user group.

This procedure explains how to link a single user to a user group. You can speed up the process by adding entire groups into your user group if this option suits your workflow security requirements.

Create a custom workflow schema

You must create a copy of a standard community workflow schema and then add the user group containing the users who have permission to act as workflow approvers.

  1. In the asset map on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Workflows  Standard Community News and Events Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset.

  2. Right-click the workflow schema asset and select Move / Link / Clone  Clone asset.

  3. Select the Workflows folder to add the custom workflow with the other workflows.

  4. In the HIPO job screen, change the name of the cloned asset to “Custom Community News and Events Workflow - Legal Team” to help identify the purpose of the workflow.

  5. Click Acquire locks on the workflow schema asset, and switch to the Permissions screen.

  6. Click Add admin permission to insert another “Grant” permission row into the table.

  7. Use the asset selector to select the “Legal Team Workflow Approvers” user group you created earlier.

  8. Click Commit to add the user group to the workflow schema.

  9. Select the Delete checkbox on the “Content Approvers” permission to flag the permission for removal.

  10. Click Commit to delete the “Content Approvers” user group permission from the workflow schema.

  11. On the Details screen, change the asset’s status to Approve and Make Live, and cascade the status change.

  12. Click Commit to make the workflow schema live.

Apply the custom news and events workflow to a community

To apply a custom workflow schema to a community:

  1. Ensure you are logged in to Workplace as a Workplace system administrator and have accessed admin mode.

  2. In the asset map side nav on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Squiz Workplace site asset and expand its tree.

  3. Within this site asset, right-click the Community asset and choose Schemas.

  4. Click Acquire locks to begin making changes.

  5. In the Workflow Schemas > Add New Schema section, select Apply from the drop-down menu.

  6. Set the Workflow Schema value to the Standard Community News and Events Workflow (Custom messages) workflow schema asset. To do this:

    1. Click the Workflow Schema field’s Select Asset button.

    2. In the asset map on the left, locate the Squiz Workplace Mk III  Squiz Workplace - Site  Site Configuration  Workflows  Custom Community News and Events Workflow - Legal Team workflow schema asset.

    3. Right-click on the workflow schema asset and select Use Me from the pop-up menu.

    4. Select the Cascade this new schema to newly-created children checkbox.

  7. Click the Commit button to save your changes.