Policy-Based Workflow

Policy-based workflow allows you to place an event or an admin task under workflow control based on the evaluation of a rule. This means that instead of an event or an admin task always launching a workflow process, the workflow process runs and generates a work item only if a rule associated with the event or an admin task is true.

An approval rule is a condition that determines whether to start a workflow process. If started, the workflow process places the event or an admin task under workflow control by adding a work item to an approver’s work list.

An approval policy is the combination of the approval rule, the rule evaluation type, policy order, policy description, and the workflow process.

For example, when creating a new group, you can define an approval policy that places the CreateGroupEvent under workflow control and creates a work item only if the new group is part of a designated parent organization. If the new group is not part of that organization, the workflow process does not run and no work item is created.

If an event has multiple rules, then all workflow process associated with the event need to be approved in order for the event to be approved. Similarly for an admin task, you can define an approval policy that places the CreateGroupTask under workflow control and creates a work item only if the name of the new group starts with Sales. If the name of the new group does not start with Sales, the workflow process does not run and no work item is created.

You can create a policy rule that is always evaluated or only when a specified attribute of a managed object changes, for example, when an employee's salary changes value.

Note: In earlier versions of policy-based workflow, if any approver made any change to the attributes, they were sent for re-approval. With attribute level approve and reject, changes at any stage are approved only once. The work item is never submitted for re-approval even if the attribute contained in the rule is modified. Once an approver approves a change, they will not see the work item again until a new change is submitted or the task is resubmitted.

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