Exploring the workflow designer
This topic provides an overview of the workflow designer interface, and describes how to access it.
To access the workflow designer
You can access the workflow designer by creating a new workflow or modifying an existing workflow. BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, select Services > Workflows.
To access the workflow designer of a new workflow, on the Workflows tab, and click New Workflow. To open the workflow designer of an existing workflow, select a workflow and click Edit:
Alternatively, select Services > Services, and open a service. Then, edit an existing workflow attached to a service from the Workflows & Questions pane (for more details on service creation, see Adding and updating services):
Workflows management considerations
To manage workflows in BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, select Services > Workflows, and use the Actions menu with selected workflows. All workflows on the Workflows page are ordered alphabetically, including new or renamed workflows. You can filter the available workflows by status: Enabled or Disabled.
When you make changes to workflows, take into account the following considerations:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Applicable to all options | You must give each workflow a unique name. |
| Delete | (Recommended) Delete only those workflows that are not associated with any published services, bundles, and service actions. For more information, see To delete a workflow below. |
| Copy | If the workflow contains questionnaires, you are provided with an option to copy the workflow along with the questionnaires. The option to copy workflows is not available for workflows that originate from SRDs imported from BMC Service Request Management. |
Rename | You can rename parent processes and called processes without any restrictions. After a parent workflow is renamed, it is renamed in called processes and services that are using this workflow. |
| Edit | You can edit workflow of published services without republishing the service. |
| Preview | You can preview a workflow in read-only mode. |
| Manage questions | Add a new questionnaire, or edit and remove a questionnaire attached to a workflow. You can also export and import the questionnaire for translation. |
To delete a workflow
To delete a workflow associated with any published service, bundle, and a service action, perform the following steps:
In BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog, select Services > Workflows.
Select the workflow, and click Actions > Delete.
To check which services, bundles, service actions, or questionnaires are associated with this workflow, click Export to CSV.
Review the list of services, and perform any of the following steps:
- Delete the workflow from all services, bundles, service actions, or questionnaires.
- Unpublish it from all services, service actions, or bundles.
From the Workflows page, select the workflow, and click Actions > Delete.
- Click Confirm to delete.
The workflow designer interface
The workflow designer consists of the palette, the canvas, and the configuration panel. The palette contains building blocks (activities) that can be arranged on the canvas to define fulfillment workflows.
The following image shows the workflow designer interface:
| Annotation | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Palette | Contains tabs to manage process elements and search options for process elements. |
| 2 | Process Elements | Contains process elements that you can drag and drop onto the canvas. |
| 3 | Favorites | Contains process elements that you marked as favorite on the Manage Palette tab. |
| 4 | Recent | Contains elements that you used recently to create a business process. |
| 5 | Manage Palette | Contains a list of all process elements that workflow designer offers. You can mark these elements as favorites or clear the check box of the items that you do not want to be displayed on the Process Elements tab. |
| 6 | Process Tool bar | Contains tools for the following operations:
|
| 7 | Process Information | Contains information about the process such as process name and parameters and permissions assigned to the process. |
| 8 | JSON | Shows the JSON of the process definition. Use this code for troubleshooting. |
| 9 | Element Information | Shows properties of the selected element that is used in the process design. |
| 10 | Process Validation | Shows warnings if the process is invalid for any reason. |
| 11 | Canvas | Is the area where process elements are placed to design the process. |
While interacting with the canvas, you can perform the following actions:
Group the canvas items by pressing Shift.
Copy and paste the grouped items to another fulfillment workflow preserving the item properties. If the properties cannot be preserved, the validation error is displayed. This option is available within the same browser session.
Add and remove the items from the existing selected group by pressing Ctrl.
The following video (3:09) gives you a brief overview of the workflow designer in the BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog console.
Enabled and disabled workflows
The following image shows the Properties pane when a workflow is saved in the Enabled state. When you save a workflow without any validation errors, the workflow is automatically saved in the Enabled state.
When you save an incomplete or invalid workflow, the workflow status is toggled to Disabled. For example, if you are building a workflow and need to find additional information, you can save the workflow while it is still in progress. Because the workflow is incomplete, the workflow is automatically saved in the disabled state.
You cannot publish a service if the workflow attached to the service is disabled. However, in some cases, a background process might introduce an error in a workflow that was already attached to a published service, and set the workflow to Disabled. If a workflow is disabled when a request is submitted, the request triggers an error.
You can toggle the workflow status to Enabled after you complete the workflow and resolve any validation issues.
Required licensing
SaaS subscribers who use BMC Helix ITSM or BMC Helix Virtual Agent Basic service are entitled to this feature.
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