Hi there!
In this article, I’ll show you how to create the Workflow App introduced in Part 1.
※You can read here for how to use the „Appointment Management Workflow App“ and its benefits.
Create a Workflow Diagram
To create a Workflow App in Questetra BPM Suite (Questetra), select App Settings > New App in the upper right of the administration screen, and open the editing screen of the new Workflow App.
In the editing screen of the new Workflow App, a „Swimlane“ is set up by default. A Swimlane is an area in which Tasks are assigned to each person in charge of processing. (For a workflow diagram with multiple processors, place multiple Swimlanes.)
The first step is to create a workflow diagram (see Part 1 for an image of the completed workflow diagram).
On the Swimlane settings screen, you designate the Sales Representative as the Operator (the name displayed on the swimlane). You also set it to allocate Tasks to yourself as the Operator (person in charge of tasks).
Select the Tasks that the sales representative will process from the top of the editing page and place it on the Swimlane. Then from the icons above select Start Event where you manually start the process and place it in the Swimlane.
Select the Human Task on the far left of the icon menu, and place it next to the Start Event.
From the „Auto-Processing Task“ icon group at the fifth position from the left of the icon menu, select „Service Task (Data Assignment)“ which can set the titles in each Task automatically and place it in the Swimlane.
Set the name of the placed Tasks to make it easier to understand the role of each Task on the workflow diagram.
In this way, you select, place and set the name of the Tasks on the workflow diagram. After that, you connect each Task with flows in the direction in which the process proceeds. Then the workflow diagram is complete.
Set Data Items
When the workflow diagram is complete, you can set up the Data Items.
*Usually, placing Tasks and setting Data Items are done while creating a workflow diagram. However, this article assumes you will complete each and then move on to the next setting for convenience.
To set Data Items, you select Data Item on the top left tab.
In the Data Item list, select the corresponding Data Items from the left and place them in the area on the right. By default, only the Title is placed.
Regarding Data Items, you mainly add and set the items to be input in the Human Task.
Data Item Settings for The 1st Consultation Record Task
The items to be entered in The 1st Consultation Record Task are as follows: (Item Name: Data Format)
- Company Name: String (single line)
- Department Name: String (single line)
- Representative: String (single line)
- Phone Number: String (single line)
- Email Address: String (single line)
- Email Address CC: String (single line)
- Result of The 1st Consultation: Select (Radio Button)
- Schedule of The 1st Consultation: Date (Y/M/D)
- Memo: Table
For the settings of each Data Item, open the settings screen using the Edit button on the right.
In the settings screen, set the Item Name and Field Name. The Item Name is the name of the data and is displayed as an input item on the Task input screen. The Field Name is used as a variable to insert business data in the Title or email (Address, CC, BCC, Subject, and Text). Also, if you check the „Required“ box, that item becomes a required item in the Task entry screen (unfilled items will prevent the Task from being completed and the token cannot proceed to the next Task).
For a Select-type Data Item with a radio button, you can set the choice list. In the settings screen of The 1st Consultation Record Task, you can set the choices: Absent, Under Consideration, Arrange Schedule, Appointment Made, Denied.
Set up Data Items for „Re-Consultation Record“ and „Enter Date/Time of Appointment“
Set the following Data Items for „Reconsultation Record“ and „Enter Date/Time of Appointment“ respectively. After installation set the item name, field name, and selection on the settings screen as before.
【Re-Consultation Record】
- Result of Re-Consultation: Select (Radio Button)
- Schedule of Re-Consultation: Date (Y/M/D)
【Enter Date/Time of Appointment】
- Start Date/Time of Appointment: Datetime
- End Date/Time of Appointment: Datetime
Data Items are now set up.
Configure Settings on each Task
The next step is to set up the process. Open the settings screen of each Task and set the Data Item display, Split Conditions, Auto-Processing Tasks, etc.
For the Data Item display, set editing permissions for the Human Task processing screen or the input form embedded in a website.
In the Split Conditions settings, you can set a condition to automatically select the next Task according to the condition after processing the Task.
For the Auto-Processing Task settings, set the Data Items to be inserted automatically, the content of the email to be sent automatically, the authentication settings of linked cloud services, the content of the automatic processing to be performed in the cloud, and other settings.
Now, let’s take a look at the workflow diagram below, showing the settings for each number.
1, 4, 9, 10, 15
I’ll not explain these items because the only items to be set are the names of the Task that were set when creating the workflow diagram.
2. The 1st Consultation Record
When you press the Task settings button, the settings screen as shown below opens. A list of selected Data Items is displayed on the left, and the corresponding settings buttons are displayed on the right; ”Editable” for the item you want to edit, „Only display“ for the item you want to display only, and „No display“ for the item you do not want to display. To check the settings, you click the „Form Preview“ button which displays the actual input screen.
The next step is to set up the Split Conditions. Select the Split tab in the Task screen to open the Split settings screen and set the transition conditions and destinations.
First, if “Appointment Made” is selected in the Result of The 1st Consultation, set the destination as Join. Next, if “Denied” is selected, set the destination as Denied. For the Default Flow at the bottom, you can set an unconditional destination. Specifically, if any other result than those above is selected, set the transition to The 1st Consultation Completed.
3, 5, 7, 12
All of these Auto-Processing Tasks automatically reflect the progress in the Title.
Set up The 1st Consultation Completed/Denied Tasks to automatically insert the Company Name, Result of The 1st Consultation, and Schedule of The 1st Consultation in the Title. Enter text directly except for the Data Items to be inserted. In this case, to make the displayed Data Item easier to understand, enter characters such as <”, ”> and (Initial Consultation: ”, ”).
In the Re-Consultation Completed Task, set Data Items such as Company Name, Result of Re-Consultation, Schedule of The 1st Consultation, and Schedule of Re-Consultation to be inserted.
In the Appointment Made Task, set Data Items such as the Company Name, Schedule of The 1st Consultation, and Start Date/Time of Appointment.
6. Re-Consultation Record
For the display settings in Re-Consultation Record Task, set the Result of Re-Consultation and Schedule of Re-Consultation as Editable. For the Data Items in The 1st Consultation Record Task, set Result of The 1st Consultation and Schedule of The 1st Consultation as Only display, and set the contact information such as the Company Name as Editable. You also set Memo as Editable.
Also, as is true with all Tasks, you have to set Data Items that should not be displayed as No display.
8. Split Conditions
In this section, set up Split Conditions to make the transition to the appropriate Task based on the Result of Re-Consultation in the previous Human Task (Re-Consultation record).
Specifically, if the Appointment Made is selected, set to transition to the Join Gateway. Similarly, if None/No Response/Denied, set it to End event, otherwise set it back to Re-Consultation.
11. Enter Date/Time of Appointment
In the display settings of this Task, set the Data Item of Start and End Date/Time of Appointment as Editable. Input/processed items should be set as Only display. However, set the contact information such as Company Name as Editable so that it can be modified or added.
13. Add Appointment to Google Calendar
You’ll need to check your Google Calendar ID and configure Questetra to link with Google Calendar in advance.
You can find your Google Calendar ID in the upper-right corner, Settings> Your Name (Account) > Integrate calendar> Calendar ID. (See figure below)
You can set the link between Questetra and Google Calendar on Questetra’s Administration screen > Account Settings > Google Connectivity > connect. (See figure below)
After that, Google’s setup screen will open. Once you log in with your Google account and allow connectivity with Questetra, the setup is complete.
After the preparations are completed, select yourself (linked with Google Calendar) as the User who connects to Google Calendar, entering the calendar ID (confirmed on the settings screen of Google Calendar) on the settings screen of the „Google Calendar: Insert Event“ Task. Set the info you want to add to Google Calendar to add (in this case the title and start and end times).
14. Send Confirmation Email
In this Task, you can set the address and contents of an automatically sent email.
For each item, you can refer to the Data Item with the settings button on the right.
The Address is set to be the email address entered in The 1st Consultation Record Task.
You can also directly enter your own email address or your department address as the sender. In the Subject field of the email, enter words such as „Confirmation of the Meeting Schedule“.
In the email text, set the appropriate Data Items so that the Company Name, Department, Representative, etc. are automatically inserted in the text of the confirmation email.
Annotation
You can place Annotations (the split conditions noted next to the flow (arrow)) on the workflow diagram.
Start Debug
Before you release a Workflow App, you can debug it. Debugging allows you to start the process as you would after release. This allows you to check if the process works as designed and the Auto-Processing Tasks work properly.
In the editing screen, you can start the debug process with the Start Event settings> Start debug process from here > Start Process > Show Started Process.
After debugging starts, you proceed with processing Tasks and check the Human Task input screen and how the process progresses. Since this Workflow App is finished by an Auto-Processing Task, you open the finished process screen from the Operated Tasks list where you check if the Automatic-Processing Tasks finished successfully in Administrator Mode. Also, check whether the appointment was added to Google Calendar automatically and whether the email was sent automatically.
Release the App
After the debug process is finished, exit editing and return to the App settings screen. Click the „Release developing Version 1“ button to release the App. (In the figure below, the version is 2 because it was released once already.)
The Appointment Management Workflow App is now completed!
Summary
In this article, I described how to create an Appointment Management Workflow App with Questetra.
You can create a Workflow App without any code, simply creating a workflow diagram and setting up Data Items and Tasks. (Of course, you can also create a complicated App with code.)
Why don’t you give it a try?
If you haven’t used Questetra yet, you can try it for free!
Try it out here!
Related Manual
Auto-Processing Tasks used in this article
