Custom Workflow Logging

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone of the forum had any thoughts on implementing custom logging within the workflows.

The basic idea is to have reporting capability on the workflows. Not all tasks within the workflow need to be reported on (as some are going to be email tasks, external tasks, etc.). The most important (per reporting requirements) are the approval tasks that need monitoring. Also the custom parameters passed to the workflow need to be captured in the report and therefore need to be logged as well.

One of our designs was to use external tasks before and after every approval task that log the approval event. The external task would run a script that would accept parameters passed in by the workflow and log them into a database. Any thoughts on this design or a better design?

Another option is the Workflow Monitor (don't know much about it except that it is something the client services of Interwoven sells as an add-on). Does anyone have any experience installing / customizing / using this tool?

Thanks in advance

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Migrateduser

As luck would have it, Interwoven has come up with a nice graphical workflow reporting tool. Oh wait, you have to pay for it. How much? Well they can't tell you that until they come and look at your installation. It's called the Workflow PlusPak and as long as you're willing to shell out a few thousand bucks, they'll install it for you. Why isn't it included in the TeamSite product? Good question...

As far as your solution, it sounds a little taxing, but if those are your needs, you have to do something tedious. I have implemented a much smaller scale logging of workflows - I just parse the iwgetwfobj output just before my endtask and save pertinent info to a file. This is more of an archive for being able to point fingers in case someone does something they shouldn't have. You appear to want to save a lot more information and provide reporting capabilities, so using a database sounds like a good plan. I would not want to put in externaltasks around all of my approval tasks in all of my workflows. But you have to do what you have to do.

I have heard rumors that in a future version of TeamSite they will be archiving workflow information so you can look up old jobs that have completed. How much info you'll be able to see and what kind of reporting capability will be built in is not clear. Maybe someone from Interwoven will enlighten us.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Hazzie

We have done exactly the same as Smitty. Using iwgetwfobj we have found all the task info, we then looped round all the task ids and found the relevent info using iwgetwfobj. We then chuck that into a database and will allow people to gather MI at the end.
This is the firts i have heard of Workflow PlusPack (or if i have heard of it before i have forgotten). I think i will be investigating this just for some background reading.

Hazzie
TS 5.5.2 on NT.

james1

> Using iwgetwfobj we have found all the task info, we then looped
> round all the task ids and found the relevent info using iwgetwfobj.

If I understand you correctly, you run "iwgetwfobj <jobid>" to get a list of task ID's, and then, for each task ID, you run "iwgetwfobj <taskid>".

It may be slightly more efficient to just make one call to "iwgetwfobj -r <jobid>" to get all information for the job and all of the job's tasks.

-- James

--
James H Koh
Interwoven Engineering

Johnny

On this note...

can someone please explain to me the format of the
activationtime & date attributes from a workflow xml object from iwgetwfobj.

They look like this
activationtime="1040250026"

how do i turn that into something meaningful?

John
Sydney, Australia

Johnny

Not to worry...

Ive been told its the epoch.
(Number of seconds since 1970)

John
Sydney, Australia

masood

TechAspect has developed a plug-in application for TeamSite called Workflow Reporter.

Workflow Reporter is a reporting tool for generating reports on past and present workflows in TeamSite. All the workflows that have been executed in TeamSite will be stored in a database and can be queried upon to get variety of information regarding jobs, tasks etc.

Main Features

Virtually all the information in a workflow up to the task level is captured into a database

Quick Reports are provided for getting a snapshot of the current jobs and tasks and task load for users

Custom Reports can be generated for Jobs and tasks based on all possible combinations of workflow parameters. Job Name, Task Name, Owner, creator, files, start time, end time, task type etc

Drill-down feature to get more information on search results
• 4 levels of drill-down to get virtually any information on a job/task

Results can be summarized to get statistical information on work done in the past and present Example: Number of "Author_Assigment" jobs done in the last 6 months
Benefits

Monitoring: Better understanding of how much work is getting done, by
whom and in how much time.

Audit Trail: Storing of all the workflow actions means they can be retrieved
to perform any specific audit trail.

Visit www.techaspect.com/products for details.

Or contact me at: masood@techaspect.com

Hazzie

http://www.techaspect.com/products.htm not http://www.techaspect.com/products but i am sure thats an easy one for people to figure out Smiley Happy

shame its not for 5.5.2

Hazzie
TS 5.5.2 on NT.

Edited by Hazzie on 01/16/03 06:02 AM (server time).

Migrateduser

My own custom tool is almost as good and doesn't cost anything. I think I'll wait until Interwoven provides this functionality for free.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

masood

My apologies for the typo in URL. The correct URL is http://www.techaspect.com/products.htm

Also, the Workflow Reporter IS available for 5.5.2, and it has been implemented successfully too. The client is pretty amazed with the Workflow Reporter features.

The website will be updated very soon to reflect this information.

One thing you might like about this plug-in is that you don' t have to modify any workflows.

We have also developed an OpenDeploy Reporter (that generates much more user friendly reports than the generic OD Admin UI).

Very soon, we shall also announce the launch of an Integrated Reporting Tool that provides reporting for all TeamSite activitiy, Worfklows and OpenDeploy. This will be integrated with the Workflow Plus Pack too.

Migrateduser

How much does this little plug-in cost? If it's part of the Workflow Plus Pak, it will cost plenty, as it takes an army of Interwoven consultants to install. People can pretty easily write a script that will keep workflow archives for them for free. If Interwoven was smart, they would include something like this as a part of the product and not charge their customers who are already paying handsomely for support. Workflow reporting/archiving should not be an add-on - it should be a part of the product.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

masood

Workflow Reporter is not a part of Interwoven's Workflow Plus pack. In future, it will be able to use the features of Workflow Plus pack to enhance its reporting, but it will still be independent of it.

Custom workflow reporting using the 'iwgetwfobj' method has been implemented at many client locations. But most of the clients prefer an out of the box solution instead of spending time modifiying workflows and designing query forms and result screens.

The Workflow Reporter is available at the most affordable price for Interwoven customers. For further details, you may contact us by submitting a short feedback form.
http://www.techaspect.com/feedback.htm

Migrateduser

Must be expensive if you're not willing to list the price here where you are hawking it. Just tell us how much it costs, please.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

It does not cost much and installation is free.
Anyway the installation is very simple. it won't take more than an hour to install and see your first report.

Migrateduser

OK, why is it a mystery what the cost of this amazing software is? Do any of you speak english? How much does it cost???

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

Putting an external task in the workflows is a very intrusive way of logging the workflows. It is very time consuming to maintan as new workflows are added.
The other option is to setup triggers or listen to events(in 5.5.2) this is slighlty a better way.
BUT what happens if your listener is down for sometime and lot of workflow activity happens during that time. All that information will be lost and you will be looking at incorrect data.
So what process guarantees all the information is logged in all cases even if the workflow was alive for few seconds ??
Techaspect's Workflow reporter can handle all these situations including database failures.
-koti
koti@techaspect.com

Edited by brain_wave on 01/16/03 02:23 PM (server time).

Migrateduser

What a surprise that you work for the same company as that other guy who was selling your product with the secret price. Actually adding an externaltask to my workflows is hardly intrusive at all. It's rather simple, actually. And it works brilliantly. Interwoven will most likely be adding job archiving and reporting capabilities into a future version of TeamSite as this was a rather significant topic at the Workflow Focus Group recently. I think people should use a free solution rather than spend money on something that will become obsolete shortly anyway. If you are not willing to name your price for the thing you are selling, it must be embarassingly high.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com