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Managing workflow configurations for governance artifacts

Managing workflow configurations for governance artifacts

By managing the workflow configurations for governance artifacts, you can control which workflow configurations apply to which conditions, and which people work on each step of the workflow.

Workflow configuration defines which actions trigger a workflow, the template that is associated with a trigger, the users who are responsible for completing the workflow steps (tasks), and those who should be notified about specific steps in the workflow.

If you have the required permissions, you can manage workflow configurations to control the workflow for all types of governance artifacts, except data protection rules.

Required permissions

You must have this user permission to create or edit governance workflow configurations:

  • Manage governance workflows

However, the Manage governance workflows permission does not include access to the draft artifacts that are affected by workflows or the permission to author artifacts.

When you create a workflow configuration, you choose a template that contains a set of steps. You assign one or more users to each step. Each step is associated with a task, unless a step is skipped. One of the assignees must complete the task to continue the workflow.

The default workflow configuration for all governance artifacts that are subject to workflows, named Default, allows users to publish artifacts themselves, without generating any tasks.

You can modify the default workflow configuration name and description, as described in Editing a workflow configuration.

Workflow templates

When you create a workflow configuration, you must select a template. You can use predefined templates.

The following predefined templates are available for governance artifact workflow configurations:

Automatic publish (default)
This workflow has one step:
  1. Triggering event (A draft artifact is created and then published for an event, category, and governance artifact type combination that is covered by the workflow configuration.)
One approval step and one review step
This workflow has four steps:
  1. Triggering event
  2. Approval
  3. Review (Optional. Active during the approval step.)
  4. Publishing
Multiple approvals and one review step
This workflow has four steps:
  1. Triggering event
  2. Approval (This step can require approval from multiple approvers.)
  3. Review (Optional. Active between the beginning of the first approval step and the end of the second approval step.)
  4. Publishing
Two approval steps and one review step
This workflow has five steps:
  1. Triggering event
  2. Pre-approval
  3. Approval
  4. Review (Optional. Active between the beginning of the first approval step and the end of the second approval step.)
  5. Publishing

Workflow steps in predefined templates

The predefined governance artifact workflow templates include these steps:

Triggering event

The workflow is triggered when a user creates a draft artifact that satisfies these conditions:

  • The event is covered by the workflow. The events that create a draft artifact are creating, editing, deleting, and importing an artifact.
  • The user has permission to manage governance artifacts in a category covered by the workflow.
  • The type of governance artifact is covered by the workflow.
Approval steps

A workflow can have up to two approval steps. When an artifact is sent for approval, an approval task is created. If notification is enabled, the approval assignees are notified.

For the One approval step and one review step and Two approval steps and one review step templates, one of the approver assignees must accept the task and then approve or reject the artifact.

For the Multiple approvals and one review step template, one or more approver assignees must accept the task and then approve or reject the artifact. The number of required approvers is specified by the workflow configuration:

  • One: The first assignee to respond approves or rejects the task.
  • All: All assignees must approve or one assignee can reject the task.
  • Minimum percentage: The minimum percentage of the majority (51% - 100%) of the assignees must approve the task. Otherwise, the task is rejected.
  • Specific number: A specific number of assignees must approve or one assignee can reject the task. Ensure that this value is less than the number of assignees. If the specified number of approvers needed is more than the number of assignees, then workflows can't be approved and are rejected even after all assignees approve them.

When the artifact is approved, the workflow continues to the next step.

If the artifact is rejected, the workflow returns to the first step so that the author can make the requested changes.

Review step

This optional step occurs in parallel to the approval step or steps. The workflow does not wait for this step to be completed. A review task starts after an artifact is sent for approval and ends when the final approval step is complete. A review assignee can accept the task and provide a review of the artifact.

Publishing step

If the Automatically publish artifact checkbox is selected, the artifact is published automatically after the previous step is completed.

If automatic publishing is not selected, when an artifact is sent for publishing, a publishing task is created. If notification is enabled, the publishing assignees are notified. A publisher assignee can publish or reject the artifact. If the publisher publishes the artifact, the workflow is finished. If the publisher rejects the artifact, the workflow returns to the first step so that the author can make the requested changes.

Workflow conditions

Workflow conditions are combinations of categories, governance artifacts, and events.

Categories

You can select either of these category options:

  • A single category that you select
  • All categories
Governance artifacts

You can select one or more governance artifact types:

  • Business terms
  • Classifications
  • Data classes
  • Reference data
  • Policies
  • Governance rules

You cannot control categories or data protection rules with a workflow.

Events

You can select one or more events:

  • Create
  • Update
  • Delete
  • Import

Assignees for workflow steps

For the triggering event that starts a workflow, any user who has the Reviewer, Editor, Admin, Owner role, or a custom role with the permission to view draft artifacts in one of the categories for the workflow can perform the workflow events.

For the other workflow steps, you can specify one or more criteria to identify assignees for workflow steps. Users who fit any of the criteria are assignees.

Restriction:

An assignee who does not have the Reviewer, Editor, Admin, or Owner role, or a custom role with the permission to view draft artifacts in the primary category for the artifact can see the workflow task but cannot see the draft artifact.

You specify assignees with one or more of these criteria:

The workflow requester
The user who started the workflow.
Category roles
Users who have one of the selected roles in the artifact’s primary category.
Artifact roles
Users who are assigned as a Data Steward for the artifact.
Users
A list of specified users or user groups.

Notifications for workflow tasks

For each step in a workflow, you can enable notifications for events. You must specify which types of users receive notifications for which events.

You can specify these events:

  • Task assigned
  • Approve
  • Reject
  • Publish
  • Delete
  • Overdue

You can specify these types of users:

The workflow requester
The user who started the workflow.
Category roles
Users who have one of the selected roles in the artifact’s primary category.
Artifact roles
Users who are assigned as a Data Steward for the artifact.
Users
A list of specified users.
User groups
A list of specified user groups. Note that it might take up to 10 minutes for the user group changes (user added or removed) to become effective in notifications.

Notifications are sent to the notifications bell for each affected user. If your Cloud Pak for Data system is configured to send emails, assignees can enable email notifications by updating their notification settings.

Creating a workflow configuration

All artifacts are assigned to a workflow configuration at all times. When you add conditions to a workflow configuration, you replace the currently assigned workflow configuration. However, any affected artifacts that are in progress continue to follow the original workflow.

To create a workflow configuration:

  1. Select Administration > Workflows and then select Governance artifact management.
  2. Click the Workflow configurations tab and then New configuration.
  3. Enter a name for the workflow configuration. Optionally enter a description of the workflow.
  4. Select a template.
  5. Click Create.
  6. For the Workflow conditions step, specify the conditions or replace the default workflow configuration:
    • To specify conditions:
      1. Click Add condition.
      2. Select a category or all categories.
      3. Select one or more tiles that specify a governance artifact type and event combination.
    • To set this workflow configuration as the new default workflow configuration, make sure there are no conditions.
  7. For each of the other steps, add assignees and notifications, as needed:
    1. In the Assignees section, select the identification methods and roles or usernames. If applicable, select the number of approvals.
    2. In the Notifications section, select which users to notify for which events.
  8. Click Save.
  9. Click Activate and then Save and activate.

Editing a workflow configuration

You can edit an existing workflow configuration to change assignees, conditions, and notifications. Your edits do not affect existing tasks, but affect only new tasks. If you remove conditions from a workflow configuration, they are automatically reassigned to the default workflow configuration.

To reassign conditions to the default workflow configuration, edit other workflow configurations to remove those conditions.

If you remove all workflow conditions from an active workflow configuration, that workflow configuration becomes the new default workflow configuration and the previous default workflow configuration is deactivated.

To edit a workflow configuration:

  1. Select Administration > Workflows and then select Governance artifact management.
  2. Click the Workflow configurations tab.
  3. Click a workflow name to open it.
  4. Make your changes. To edit the workflow name and description, click the overflow menu (overflow menu).
  5. Click Save.
  6. Click Activate and then Save and activate.

Deactivating an active workflow configuration

You can deactivate an active workflow configuration. When you deactivate a workflow configuration, its conditions are inherited by the active workflow configuration on the parent category to the category covered by the original workflow configuration. If there are no other active workflow configurations for the category hierarchy, then the conditions are inherited by the default workflow configuration.

To deactivate an active workflow configuration:

  1. Select Administration > Workflows and then select Governance artifact management.
  2. Click the Workflow configurations tab.
  3. Click the workflow configuration name to open it.
  4. Click Deactivate and then Deactivate.

Deleting a workflow configuration

You can delete an inactive workflow configuration.

To delete an inactive workflow configuration:

  1. Select Administration > Workflows and then select Governance artifact management.
  2. Click the Workflow configurations tab.
  3. Click the action menu next to the workflow name and choose Delete.

Learn more

Parent topic: Workflows for governance artifacts

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