Question:
How can I make my document status change automatically when the document is ‘approved‘ or ‘sent on‘ by someone in the route?
Answer:
Every Spitfire document has a status. These statuses are configurable, but in general, documents can be “open” or “closed” or “approved” or “pending,” etc. Similarly, every routed document has a routing status for each routee: “pending,” “sent on,” “sent back,” “accepted,” etc. Frequently, the overall status of a document is related to the progress the document makes in its routing. Let‘s use a simple example based upon a Pay Request. In this example,
- Anne, the project assistant, creates the pay requests.
- Vic, the vendor, fills it out online (or Anne does this on Vic‘s behalf if vendors can‘t log into Spitfire).
- Mike, the PM, reviews the request.
- Bob, the bookkeeper, does the payables.
So, when Mike accepts his route entry, he is in essence approving the Pay Request document. While it isn‘t a big deal for Mike to change the document status before he saves, we can configure Spitfire to do this via workflow. The routing to accomplish this would look like:
Seq #1 Anne
Seq #2 Vic (or Vendor)
Seq #3 Mike (or Project Manager)
Seq #4 Spitfire
Seq #5 Bob (or Accountant)
- Anne creates the Pay Request and routes it to Vic, if Vic can log into Spitfire.
- Vic receives the Pay Request and fills it out online (or Anne does this too if vendors can‘t log into Spitfire). The document is routed to Mike.
- Mike reviews the request and clicks the ‘thumbs up‘ icon which accepts the route by default. The document is routed to ‘Spitfire‘.
- The Spitfire workflow changes the document status to Approved and sends it on to Bob.
- Bob does the payables.
The workflow script for step 4 would be stored in the routing definition. The script itself is simple:
ATC: STATUS A
ATC: SAVE
Additional Comments:
In a sense, the opposite of this type of pattern is to have the document status affect the routing. See KBA-01177 for changing a document route based upon status. For more information about workflow scripts, see ATC Scripts and Automatic Workflow.
KBA-01306; Last updated: November 8, 2016 at 13:22 pm;