By now you are probably familiar with how to use steps to create your processes. If not, we suggest reading the corresponding tutorial before going through Actions.
In this tutorial we cover
Basics
While steps define the overarching structure of your process and its owners, actions are detailed input fields required to complete the step (work instructions, data inputs like customer ids, etc.). You saw this when you created the action "Provide customer id" in our "Master Data Change" process example. Each step can consist of multiple actions and action can be flagged as optional.
In our previously used Master Data Change process the step "Provide details of change" consists of three actions.
When a process instance is running, the step assignee will see this view.
You can change the order of the actions by using drag-and-drop. Additionally you can delete and duplicate actions.
Action Types
You can choose from a range of different actions. They all require some form of input by the step assignee. An exception is the Instruction action. This action allows you to give more context about the task to the step assignee and does not require any input.
Action Type | Description | |
Address Input | Fields for street, ZIP code and city | the address validity is not checked automatically |
Checklist | List with items that can be checked off | |
Date Input | Entry for day, month and year | |
File Upload | Enables a range of file uploads | |
Image Upload | Enables image file uploads | when on mobile it automatically opens the camera possible to embed image in later steps by using data reference |
Instruction | Non-interactive field to share information | |
Single Value Dropdown | Dropdown with only one selectable item | |
Multi Value Dropdown | Dropdown with multiple selectable items | |
Radio | List where only one item can be selected | using data reference, this field is useful for triggering conditional steps |
String Input | Single line text field for short text input | |
Signature | Field which allows users to add their signature | |
Text Input | Multiple line text field for long text input | |
URL Input | Field where clickable URLs can be added | |
User selection | Dropdown with a list of your workspace users and teams. | using data reference, this field is useful for dynamically assigning a step to a user |
Action Conditions
An action may be only required based on previous action input values. The rules of dependency of one action on the outcome of previous actions can be set up by defining conditions.
For that, we offer you action conditions. In the desired action simply click on the condition icon.
A pop-up will appear in which you define the conditions. The condition is based on an input entered in a previous action. First, we need to select the action on which the condition depends and afterward the input value that shall be satisfied.
You can have one or multiple conditions. To combine multiple conditions, you have the option of ensuring a condition must be fulfilled (using AND condition) or either one or the other (OR condition).
Data Reference
Actions often build on top of information provided in previous steps. For the "Master Data Change" example it would be useful to show all the information entered by the customer support agent to the data specialist, especially the proof of address. Also at the end of process instance the customer support would like to access the proof of address change that the data specialist submitted in a previous step.
Let us build this logic together by using the data reference feature. Data reference can be accessed on the configuration of every step, by clicking the curly brackets
To display the proof of address, customer id and new address, enter the process editor of the Master Data Change process and configure the Instruction action. Click on the curly brackets and choose the field that you want to reference
You can proceed in the same way to reference other fields. When the data specialist will execute the step in a running process instance he will be able to see all information that he needs.