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Email visual annotates workflow initiation

milind

Hi All,
We want to implement following features in the workflow.
Cab anybody let us know if these are possible in TeamSite6.1 on solaris machine.

1)Sending email to reviewer with the content inside of it.
2)The reviewer should be able to review using Visual Annotate (in the email itself) and approve or reject the content.
3)The email shud provide a field for reviewer to put his comments.
4)A actions taken by each user in the workflow shud be recorded and displayed in the email and on the 'Task Details' page.
5)The datacapture form shud have a button which can initiate a workflow.
6)A reviewewer in the chain shud b able to select next reviewer(s) .

Waiting for the reply

Regards
Milind

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Comments

Adam Stoller

http://www.quotient-inc.com

milind

Hi Fish,
Thanks for the reply.
Here are the answers to your questions

Do you mean the content of an HTML or generated page within the body of the email, or a file attached to the email?
Yes, the html should be the part of email body

What actions? VA actions or just workflow interactions?
The workflow actions or status of the workflow. E.g. if there are 3 reviewers then which reviewer has approved, which still has to approve, which approver has rejected etc.

Regards
Milind

Adam Stoller

Do you mean the content of an HTML or generated page within the body of the email, or a file attached to the email?
Yes, the html should be the part of email body
Well, as I stated before, you're counting on the user's choice of mail reader being able to interpret the HTML correctly and quite possibly whether or not they have access to things that might be referenced by the HTML (like style sheets, etc.) - and we're talking just HTML not JSP or some such that requires an application server to render the code. Given those constraints, you could probably "slurp" in the file associated with the workflow and dump it into the message portion of the email. What will you do if there's more than one file associated with the workflow?

What actions? VA actions or just workflow interactions?
The workflow actions or status of the workflow. E.g. if there are 3 reviewers then which reviewer has approved, which still has to approve, which approver has rejected etc.
The workflow actions can be retrieved via TeamSite::WFworkflow and TeamSite::WFtask methods, or by parsing the output of something like iwgetwfobj -r jobid - take your pick. Of course you would need to figure out how you're going to merge this information with the HTML code that represents the file being reviewed... Also, would you even proceed to the next reviewer if a previous reviewer rejected the work?

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

milind

Thanks Fish !

Is there anyone who can give expert openion on the sending and reviewing the content in email ?

Thanks & Regards

Milind

awizardly

I would imagine that most people use the solution email script to send preview links to the actual content. This provides quite a bit more flexibility because it allows for the previewing of more than one file per workflow. Like ghoti said different email clients will render the content very differently, so unless the actual target is an email client then you would be better off allowing for links to content that allow the "reviewer" or "tester" to view the content in the browser of their choice. Also I don't believe that the visual annotate client would work that wel in an email client.

Lee
Organic Inc
http://www.organic.com

milind

Thanks Lee for your comment.
But I am still waiting for replies from other users. Lets see wht others say.

Regards

Milind

Jamik

What we do is just have links in our email notifications which gives us much more flexibility and keeps the emails nice and short for the users so they aren't immediately overwhelmed with information. We had links to preview, approve, reject, etc. It worked pretty slick. Of course, we've trimmed it down now since we don't need approvals anymore so they now just get preview links. I'd say stay away from html emails as much as possible and to keep your emails as simple as possible.

Migrateduser

Using VA on content that you are sending in the email wouldn't work (aside from it not being a great design as others have pointed out). VA inlcudes a browser plugin which only works on IE that handles the actual input of the markup (drawing, text, highlighting, and so on) and the communication of that stuff back to TeamSite where it all gets set as an EA on the file.

My experience with visual annotate was profoundly unpleasant. It was not smart enough to understand that a workflow task could have more than two default transitions (approve or reject in the case of a review task, just Done in the case of a worker bee), and it's behaviour was pretty flaky. I've not heard anything that gives me hope that they are actively working to fix the bugs or improve the features of it.

Considering how much stuff they've exposed through web services and url commands, it probably wouldn't be too hard to write a replacement that worked a little more reliably and flexibly.