March'22

Interconnected workflow (trigger/initiation)

Modern organizations are complex in the structure where multiple internal and external teams must interact and operate in tandem to achieve organizational goals. Consistent communication is required within the department, inter-department, and inter-organization. Especially when multiple organizations are involved, things get amplified due to a lack of real-time collaboration, communication, and availability of information that directly impacts the deliverables. In most cases, information flow is manual, i.e., people-dependent more than process and technology-dependent, increasing disputes amongst business entities.

Let’s take the example of supply chain orchestration. To operate optimally, the ‘Auto OEM’ production department must get real-time information from various internal departments such as production planning, inventory planning, procurement, finance & external business entities such as suppliers and transport organizations.

Each business entity has its internal process, as well as there are intersection points. The inventory planning team provides information such as the quantity of material required and current inventory levels to the procurement team, which further creates the purchase request and sends it to various suppliers. Seamlessly interacting with multiple suppliers is often challenging, as suppliers review the request, provide their acceptance, and share the quote and expected delivery date. All such quotes are compared before issuing the purchase order, for which the finance team may require an ‘X’ number of approvals. Finally, the supplier(s) accepts the order and informs the transport organization to deliver the required materials.

Making production more efficient is possible only when all these business entities work in synchronization, share timely information, and their business processes are automated & connected irrespective of whether they are part of the same or a different organization.

DL Asset Track™ has a feature called ‘interconnected workflow,’ enabling organizations to securely share real-time information within and outside the organization, promoting collaboration, transparency, and accountability. This feature connects departments, business entities & processes that are distinct and often disconnected.

Salient Aspects

1. Trigger/initiate a target workflow based on information provided by a business entity of a particular workflow.
2. Trigger/initiate multiple target workflows (splitting) based on the information provided by a business entity of a particular workflow.
3. Trigger/initiate one or more target workflows after a particular business workflow is completed.
4. Trigger/initiate one or more target workflows after a business entity has completed the task and ownership is transferred to another business entity.
5. Aggregate information between business entities, from various business workflows to a dedicated business workflow.

Steps

Configure target workflow(s) based on attribute value
Please find the info here.

1. Select a business entity.
2. Go to trigger settings.
3. Select the trigger attribute(s).
4. Select the target workflow(s).
5. Select the trigger event.
   1. Create
   2. Create & send

6. In the settings, you can perform attribute mapping between target attributes & parent (current) attributes.

   1. You can configure a constant value for a parent attribute.
   2. You can configure a context variable between the target attribute & the parent attribute.

7. In the trigger event, you may select one or more events.

   1. Update on instance receive.
   2. Update by business entity user.
   3. Update by auditor user.
   4. Update on instance refresh by Business Entity user.
   5. Update on instance refresh by Auditor user.
   6. Update by system.

Configure workflow trigger node
please find the info here.

1. Select the last business entity of a workflow.

2. Select the next node as workflow trigger node.

3. Configure the properties of the workflow trigger node.

4. Configure the trigger event:

   1. Configure the conditions.
   2. Configure the scheduler to execute the conditions.

5. Configure the aggregation rule, and here, you can write your own script in the command prompt, which will be used to calculate context variables and attributes. Various aggregation functions available are average, count, maximum, minimum, and sum.

6. Configure the trigger:

   1. Select the target workflow(s).
   2. Select the event:
      1. Create
      2. Create & send
   3. If required, perform a mapping between target attributes & current attributes.

7. Configure the post-script, and you can enter a post aggregation script that will run for each instance in one batch after executing the workflow-trigger node.