Automations can be used for a varienty of purposes, for example to organize a controlled and documented review and approval of processes or process tailorings.

Automations consist of states, participants, and the actual automation workflows. As participants can also be used for other purposes, they are described here.

Every process version has a certain state, e.g. Draft or Released. All possible states can be managed via Administration > Process Release > States.

To add or modify states and their color, click or tap on the state name or use the respective menus.

The different languages can be modified via the selection on the top right.

In previous Stages versions, those states and their colors were statically defined in configuration files. When upgrading to version 7.6, the configured values are automatically migrated to the new mechanism.

Automations can be defined for multiple purposes, e.g. for a simple process release, for a more complex review and approval, or for approval of a process tailoring.

To create and modify automations, go to Administration > Process Release > Automations.

A sample process release automation consist of the following steps:

• Create a new process version
• Send email notifications to the reviewers
• Wait for their review to finish
• If all reviewers finished their review with “OK”
  • Release the process version and mark it as valid
  • Mark the previous valid version as obsolete
  • Send email notification to all process users
• If any of the reviewers finished their review with “NOT OK”
  • Mark the process version as invalid

The following video shows how to create this automation in Stages:

HINT: if you are unable to watch the video directly, you can download it from the Method Park website.

You can also use the predefined “Review and Approval” automation to build your own automation.

If your system has been upgraded from a previous Stages version and does not contain any pre-defined automations yet, you can download the sample "Review and Approval" automation here (click right and select “Download As” or similar). To import, log in with administrative access, go to Administration > Process Release and click or tap … in the top right corner. Then select Import and upload the sample automation.

Of course, the Stages consultants are also happy to help with process automations.

HINT: to successfully use the “Send E-Mail” automation step, an email server needs to be configured on your server. If you do not receive any emails testing while testing an automation, ask your Stages administrator if this information is correctly configured in the <notification> section of the config.xml file.