Workflow options

[MarkW]

Hi everyone!

Just ran across PW yesterday while searching for a better way to implement a project I'm currently working on. I am very impressed and very excited about what can be done so easily in PW.

Having said that, being a total newbie to PW and having little luck searching around the forums, I was wondering if there was a way to implement multi-step Workflows like concrete5 Enterprise?

Thanks!!

[Pete]

Hi Mark and welcome to ProcessWire!

Firstly, if you're referring to the features that start at about 1 minute into this video then I'm afraid not, not yet at least.

It is on the roadmap for Winter 2013/2014 but ryan would have to weigh in on this topic as I'm not sure what his thoughts are on the subject - I know it has come up a few times on the forums though which is why it's on the roadmap.

After watching that video and having worked with workflows once before, that is an excellent implementation of what can be a complex feature. I can see how it could also be used in ProcessWire on any field you could add to a template (not necessarily how to code it though ) and even with workflows spanning multiple templates or just specific templates with lots of fields and different approvals required.

It might be nice, though not sure how useful this would be, to have multi-step workflows where an editor can see the fields they need to see and at the next stage the approver sees some other fields that we don't want to concern the editor with but which need filling out before a page goes public. This was a requirement of a CMS used in government that I had to get to grips with a decade ago, certainly, so it's something I know that larger organisations potentially require.

In the meantime if you let us know the workflow steps you would like to implement it might be possible to do something simpler with a module, depending on the complexity of your requirements. Quite often, explaining what you are trying to achieve will result in some code appearing in these forums

I guess another good question whilst we're on this subject is: does the workflow system in Concrete5 Enterprise do everything you need it to do or is there anything you would change? I'm guessing you've either tried it out or watched the video I linked to so it would be interesting to get more feedback from people who've used workflows to see if that particular implementation looks like a good direction to go in.

[MarkW]

Hi Pete, thanks for the warm welcome!

Yes, that's exactly what I was looking at. Here's generically what I need to do:

Workflow Example

contributor/author > proofer > editor > chief editor/publisher

and to be able to fall back to the next level down if not yet approved, reject, or queue for publication. Everything is essentially a variation of this, but for each specified category (or I am guessing, each page template type in PW?). I have to run things through the workflow like: product reviews, music reviews, movie reviews, articles, products, illustrations, videos, advertisements, classified listings, etc.

Glad to see it's on the RoadMap. Looks like PW has come a long way in a really short amount of time. I've just started playing with it on my desktop a bit, poking around and looking under the hood using the tutorials.

[ryan]

This probably doesn't cover all that you are talking about, but you might find this post interesting, as it gets into how to build simple custom workflows with ProcessWire. 

[MarkW]

Wow, Ryan! Excellent work. My jaw hits the floor whenever you post stuff like this, which seems like constantly!