Gateways Archives | Low-Code BPM Platform

Business Rules

Comidor team — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 08:20:18 +0000

Comidor offers a variety of features in order to apply business rules in processes and custom apps to cover any possible scenario and to enhance the capabilities of your apps and workflows.

In particular, you can include the following business rules:

Gateways
Conditional flow
Field rules
Field validations
Shell commands
Scripts before save

Gateways

One of the business rules in a workflow is Gateways.

A gateway is used to determine the branching, forking, merging, and joining of paths drawn by sequence flow. In Comidor we have Exclusive, Inclusive, and Parallel gateways.

Inclusive (OR) Gateway: Inclusive Gateway refers to activating one or more flows when dividing. For incoming, all paths may be taken/fulfilled, from one to all.
Parallel (AND) Gateway (Fork/Join): Parallel Gateway refers to dividing into two or more flows (fork). For incoming flows, the parallel gateway waits for all incoming flows before continuing (join).
Exclusive (XOR) Gateway: Exclusive Gateway refers to choosing “either/or” and limits the outcome to exactly one single flow of the output branches.

Conditional Flow

Through Conditional Flows, you can connect your workflow elements (activities, gateways, or events) and design any possible/desired alternative path. For example, once a Task is created you should connect it with the previous element with a Conditional Flow. In the conditional flow form:

Drag and drop a conditional flow from a Start Event to an Activity and select the Target State, which is the initial state of the target activity (state can be Scheduled or Running). Type a brief description of the conditional flow to help users in understanding this part of the workflow.
Drag-and-drop a conditional flow from an Activity/Gateway and select the Source State and Target State, which are the trigger state (can be completed/failed/canceled) and impact state (can be scheduled/running/paused/completed/canceled/failed), respectively.
Conditions can be added in both cases from the Advanced Conditions tab/Custom condition builder. Add further conditions through custom condition builder using either database system fields or any custom user fields you have created in User fields and have added in a User form.
In more complicated workflows, there might be a need to combine and use more complex Advanced conditions. In these cases, the workflow checks more conditions as you can see below. Click on icons “<“,”>” to add a parenthesis before or after the condition you want, and select AND, OR between the conditions in each case accordingly. With the “+” and “-” buttons you can add or delete a condition.

Once the above step(s) have been completed, a conditional flow with your brief description is added to your workflow design between the standard start event and the task you have created or between activities/gates.

Diamonds in the conditional flow refer to Source state and arrows to Target State, blue: Running, green: Completed, black/white: Canceled, red: Failed, grey: Scheduled, orange: Paused.

Field Rules

Another type of business rule is available both in workflows & the app designer, for process and non-process enabled apps.

The field rules functionality enables you to hide or show fields inside forms when certain conditions are met.

Create custom condition scenarios for fields and select in which scenario the fields are going to be shown or hidden.
Select more than one scenario – field condition for a specific field. This enables you to cover multiple scenarios.
Eliminate the number of forms that need to be created and make your adjustments to one simple form.
Hide sensitive information which should be displayed only for certain users, roles, or groups in a workflow.

To access Field Rules go to the App Factory icon > Workflow Automation > Workflows. Access the Workflow you are working on and select the tab Field Rules.

Create Field Rules

To create a new Field Rule press on the “+” button, and a creation form opens.

Give a Rule title
Select the Action to be performed: you can either Hide or Show a field
Choose the name of the User Field that you wish to perform the above action to
Set in which Form you wish this rule to be applied (from the user forms that the selected field is displayed)
Select the desired Save option (refer to Quick Reference Guide)

Custom Condition Builder

After saving the Field Rule, and while being at the view form, you can add conditions.

Click on the ‘+’ icon to insert a new row
Select the unit that the field comes from (Process, Application name, etc.)
Choose the Name of the Field and its value
Use AND, OR, and parenthesis to form your conditions
After adding all the rows of conditions you need, click on the Publish condition button.

Manage Field Rules

If you want to make any changes to a Field Rule, simply select the respective Field Rule and click on the pencil icon.
After making any changes click on Save.
In order to change the conditions, simply make the changes you wish in the view form of the Field Rule, and then, press the Publish condition.
You can Delete one or more Field Rules, by multi-checking them in the Field Rules table and then clicking on Delete.

Field Validation

This kind of business rule can be applied both to process-enabled and non-process-enabled apps.

In the form designer, you can set desired properties to each user field:

The value on the “Pattern” field should be a “Regular Expression” in order to validate the input data on the field. The “Pattern Error Message” field is the custom error message that should be displayed if the validation fails.

Links for creating and testing “Regular Expressions”: https://regexr.com/ and https://www.regular-expressions.info/

Here are some examples of “Regular Expressions”:

Search for an email address: \b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,}\b
Email field with the option to leave the field empty: ^$|^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)\.([a-zA-Z]{2,5})$
Text field with only alphabetical characters: ^[a-zA-Z ]*$
Numeric field having only digits: ^[0-9]+$
Numeric field with only 3 digits between 1 to 9: [1-9]\d\d
Integer number that can be negative and has a maximum of 10 digits: ^\s*-?[0-9]{1,10}\s*$
Allowing the field to remain empty use this string : ^$| and then use the correct pattern.
- Note: In a non-mandatory field with a pattern, if the pattern is not set to allow the field to be left blank, the “Pattern Error Message” will be displayed.
Pattern for Greek IBAN:^GR\d{9}[0-9A-Z]{16}$ (you can find IBAN patterns in this link)

Additionally, you can hide user fields if their value is not set, or only when they have value – depending on your scenario. Choose the respective option in your form.

Shell Command & Script before save

You can add scripts to a workflow design within forms to the “script before save” section and/or to the Shell Command component of the workflow design.

Scripts can also be added in the form of non-process enabled apps in the app builder.

When adding a Shell Command you can define that:

The Title is one of the required fields.
The Parent Stage is the stage of the parent process as soon as this step is reached.
The Shell Type, selecting between Unix (sh), Windows (cmd), Windows (Powershell), Platon script, Sikuli script.
The Shell Script Variables by giving the Key, the Field (Runtime value), and its Value.
Tip: By clicking on the “+” button you can add as many keys as required or needed.
The Shell Script Body text.
The Shell Response.

If you add a script within forms to the “script before save” section, the script will run after the user saves the form/completes a task with this form.

We commonly add a “script before save” to check the user’s input and populate error messages. For example, we can include if statements to check the values of fields, assign values to fields, and many more.

This removes the need to add a shell script to the workflow.

For more info regarding scripting please contact us at support@comidor.com.

The post Business Rules appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

Workflow Designer

Comidor team — Tue, 02 May 2023 08:10:24 +0000

With Comidor BPMN 2.0 Designer, you can map and optimize any process that takes place in your company.

To access Workflow Designer, click on the App Factory icon > Process Automation > Process Designs.

Learn how to create and manage workflows step by step.

Workflow Design

In the Design tab, you can start the Workflow creation.

Workflow Components

Basic Components:

Comidor offers the following BPMN 2.0 basic workflow components:

- Tasks and escalations
- Subprocess
- Email
- SMS
- Notification
- Timer
- AND/OR/XOR gateways
- Annotation
- End

Integration Components:

Additionally, designers cover their integration needs with the following workflow components:

- RESTful Web Service
- OpenAI ChatGPT
- Message Queue
- Teams integration
- Google Integration
- Zoho projects API
- Zoho leads API
- Freshdesk API
- Salesforce API

Data Components:

Designers use low-code data workflow components for data input and output.

- Comidor DATA (insert/update/delete)
- Shell Command
- File Reader
- Export Data
- Convert Data
- Digital Signature
- Document Creator
- QR Generator
- Table Extractor
- Excel Processor
- Graph Creator
- Blockchain

RPA Workflow Components:

Other workflow components can be added within the workflow design to enhance automation in business processes with RPA and ML/AI. Those components are:

- RPA Caller/ Receiver
- Sentiment Analysis
- Document Analyzer
- Text Classification
- Predictive ML
- Selenium RPA
- Image Classification
- Web Scraper

Code Components:

Users without development skills can add the following workflow code components into the workflow designs to replace commands and queries:

- Set values
- Existence check
- SQL Creator
- String Utilities
- JSON Array to Excel
- Deserialize JSON

Basic Components

Flow Objects

In the Workflow Design panel, you may see flow objects like:

Events
Activities
Gateways

Events

Having Standard Start Event and End Event already in the design area, you can add more flow objects with drag-and-drop in your Workflow. The Start Event Notation can be only one; a workflow may start when:

a Process (of any type: Generic Process, Project, Opportunity, Event, Training, Issue, Ticket, Topic, Job Posting, Campaign) connected with this Workflow is set as “Running”
a Process Template is initiated with the initial state “Running”
a Process Schedule is triggered

Still, you may have as many End Events as you needed.

Other Intermediate Events exist:

Email: The email element is a Throwing-Message Intermediate Event that can be used to create and send custom emails through your automated process.
Timer: The timer element is a Catching-Timer Intermediate Event that adds a timer counting delays in hours or days in your workflow.
System Notification: Sends pre-defined or custom system messages to specific Comidor users.

Timer boundary Events and Conditional Events are depicted in Comidor differently than within Activities.

Events affect the process flow and have a cause (trigger) and an effect (impact/result).

Activities

Activities refer to work performed by the user(s)/group(s) (atomic or non-atomic) which can be a Task or Sub-Process (sub-process may be of any type: Generic Process, Project, Opportunity, Event, Training, Issue, Ticket, Topic, Job Posting, Campaign).

Tasks (atomic or choreography): a task is used when the work is not broken into a finer level, while the choreography task is used when more than one participant is involved and needs to exchange messages. This piece of work is depicted in Comidor with a Workflow Task that can be assigned to one or more Personnel/Group leader(s) of a team/whole team and can be broken down manually to sub-tasks later, while the process is on the go.
Sub-process: a process that can be broken down into a set of smaller activities (other workflows with tasks and sub-processes or call activities) and can involve one or more participants.

Escalation is also available. The user can set specific conditions that will trigger actions or notifications as per the user’s needs and requirements. In the task you wish to apply the escalation to, click on the upwards arrow button. A new window opens, where you can create and manage the escalations for this particular task.

Click on the “+” button to create a new escalation. In the “Basic” tab, fill in the Description, Priority, and Repetition Days fields. Workflow and Stage fields are automatically set and cannot be edited.

In the “Conditions” tab, choose the conditions based on which an action or notification should be triggered. For example, in case the completion of the task is delayed by a specific amount of hours or more, a predefined action could be triggered or notifications/emails could be sent to specified users/groups.

In the “Actions” tab, you have the option to perform an action in a field related to the mother process or to a global field. In this example, when the task’s finish is delayed over 3 hours, the mother process state will be paused. The “+” and “-” buttons allow you to add or delete actions.

In the “Notifications” tab, you can select the users/groups that should receive the notification. In addition, you can add related comments in the “Content” field. The users will receive the notification in the System Notifications button of the main Notification bar.

Similarly, in the “E-mails” tab, you can either select the users/groups that should receive a predefined email or type a specific email address. In order for your email to be sent, you have to set up first an email account.

Once all the above have been completed, click on “Save” or “Save and New” if you wish to create more escalations for this task. Otherwise, click on”Cancel” if you do not want to save your entry.

Gateways

A gateway is used to determine the branching, forking, merging, and joining of paths drawn by sequence flow. In Comidor we have Exclusive, Inclusive, and Parallel gateways.

Inclusive (OR) Gateway: Inclusive Gateway refers to activating one or more flows when dividing. For incoming, all paths may be taken/fulfilled, from one to all.
Parallel (AND) Gateway (Fork/Join): Parallel Gateway refers to dividing into two or more flows (fork). For incoming flows, the parallel gateway will wait for all incoming flows before continues (join).
Exclusive (XOR) Gateway: Exclusive Gateway refers to choosing “either/or” and will limit the outcome to exactly one single flow of the output branches.

Connectors

We use sequence flow connecting objects in Comidor.

Conditional Flow shows the order of activities; it may hold a condition (conditional flow) or stand as default flow. It connects activities/events/gateways that exist in the same pool/lane.

Learn more about each Workflow Component in detail.

Swimlanes: Pool and Lanes

Pool and Lane define the responsibility for activities (tasks/sub-processes)
Lanes exist inside a Pool and pool boundaries represent the process that is automated with the workflow
We may have a Pool with different Lanes (participants such as the user(s)/group(s) for process automation) or have different Pools with one Lane for different sub-processes of an automated mother process
You can add Lanes in the Pool by clicking on the upper-left-side “+” button in the Designer. A Lane name is a free text – you may add a name of a person, department, or role
You can click on the pencil button to edit the name of a Swim Lane, and change its position with the arrows.

Manage Workflows Design

In general, there are some workflow management actions either referring to Design or Workflow ID:

Choose how the conditional flow is depicted in Paths. Choose between Free, Classic, or Classic – Ignore Obstacles based on your preferences.
Define the workflow validity period by clicking on the mini calendar icon.
Add private or public tags to this workflow design for easier tracking and search capability.
Leave a comment in Notes; people having access to the workflow will be notified accordingly.

Click here to view some Workflow Examples.

The post Workflow Designer appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.