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Yet another VisualAnnotate question from me

System

Sadly, I don't often get responses when I post a question relating to VisualAnnotate, but here goes...

I have a workflow that is VA-enabled, of course. I'm noticing some poor behavior with one of the tasks... here is the task, itself...


     <usertask name="Developmental Editor Review"
                 owner="U25G"
                 description="REVIEW DRAFT">

       __INSERT__("<areavpath v='$area_vpath'/>");
       <successors>
               <successorset description='Approve: Send to Content Reviewer'>
                     <succ v='Unlock for Email Content Reviewer'/>
               </successorset>
               <successorset description="Approve: Send to Writer">
                     <succ v="Email Writer 2"/>
               </successorset>
               <successorset description="Reject: Send to Writer">
                     <succ v="Email Writer 1 Rejection"/>
               </successorset>
       </successors>
         <variables>
            <variable key="author_task" value="true"/>
        <variable key="va_approve" value="Approved"/>
        <variable key="va_reject" value="Please Revise"/>
        <variable key="va_enabled" value="true"/>
         </variables>

     </usertask>

Pretty straight-forward, right? Well, the VA toolbar in this task provides me with only the first two transition options, "Approve: Send to Content Reviewer" and "Approve: Send to Writer".

Is VisualAnnotate really incapable of providing THREE transition options? Can someone please help me determine whether this is my WF error or if it's [extremely] poor design on behalf of Interwoven?

Thanks,

Dave

Current Environment(s):
(1) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K3
(2) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K
(3) TS 5.5.2 SP2 on Win2K

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Comments

Dwayne

To the best of my knowledge, you are observing a known limitation of VA - only two task transitions allowed. At least, if you want to use the transition "stamps" that are a part of VA. You can have as many transitions as you like if users are using the "stock" task transition mechanism, and only using VA for markup, rather than transitioning.

--

Current project: TS 5.5.2/6.1 W2K

Migrateduser

Dwayne,

Thank you very much for this information -- I've been hard-pressed to find decent documentation for VA, so I wasn't even aware of this limitation. Is IW even considering opening up VA for more than two transition stamps?

Dave

Current Environment(s):
(1) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K3
(2) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K
(3) TS 5.5.2 SP2 on Win2K

Dwayne

I've no idea what IWOV's long-term plans are for VA. I suspect that they'd have to change the UI around a fair amount to accomodate more transitions, because, as I recall, those "stamp" buttons take up a fair amount of real estate on the browser. You'd rapidly run out of room.

IMO, those stamps are pure marketing "fluff." There's no value added - they are only there for the "cool" factor. A drop-down with the transition options would be just as functional, and a LOT more flexible.

--

Current project: TS 5.5.2/6.1 W2K

Migrateduser

Agreed, but guess whose job it is to market "fluff" to a bunch of already "fluffy" people? Yep...

Dave

Current Environment(s):
(1) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K3
(2) TS 6.1 SP1 on W2K
(3) TS 5.5.2 SP2 on Win2K

Migrateduser

A hearty "amen" to that.

The other major usability failures that it has are:

1)No way for the author to move into edit mode when viewing the annotation
2)Having a button labeled Review almost right next to a button labeled Reviews (which is actually a pulldown but doesn't look like it)
3)If it's a generated page, when you edit the underlying DCR, if you transition via the content wizard's Next >> buttons, when it goes back to the reviewer, their default view is going to be the most recent annotation - in other words, the one they sent to the author in the first place!

Look, Mr. User, it's really easy, see - you look at the reviewers annotations to see what you need to do, then you click Review... no, not that one, the other one labeled review, which takes you back to the unannotated preview, then you click edit, which will finally load the DCR for you to edit. Ok, now when you're ready to save... Stop! Don't do that. Click Save, then Generate. Now on your generated page, click review and then stamp it done. Wasn't that easy!

It's not quite the steaming pile that workflow builder was in its early incarnations (maybe WFB has gotten usable in the last couple of years, but I don't have time to find out), but it is pretty awful.