Users registered in Questetra’s workflow platform belong to an [Organization], and are assigned a [Position] if necessary. This article describes how to assign candidates for processing by combining [Organization] and [Position] in a Swimlane’s settings.
1. Directly designate an organization and nominate members by Position
When an Organization is specified in the “Operator” settings, members belonging to the specified organization will be candidates for processing tasks. If you also specify the Position, you can further narrow down the target from the members who belong to the Organization.
The following types of Position designations are available
- Not specified: By leaving the [Position] field blank, all members of all affiliations will be covered
- (No Position): All members who have not been assigned a Position will be included
- (With Position): All members who have been assigned a Position in the group will be included
- Specified Position: All members who have been assigned the specified Position will be included
If the organizational structure shown in the figure below targets members directly belonging to “01: Accounting Department”, the candidate operators will be as follows for each Position setting.
| [Position] Settings | Operator Candidate |
|---|---|
| Not specified | Sumatra, Galapagos, Hawaii, Solomon, Oahu |
| (No position) | Solomon, Oahu |
| (Positions available) | Sumatra, Galapagos, Hawaii |
| Manager | Sumatra |
| Assistant Manager | Galapagos, Hawaii |
| Section Chief | (No candidate. The task will be an error task) |
2. Designate relative organizations and designate members by Position
In a workflow consisting of multiple Swimlanes, it is possible to set relative operators by referring to other Swimlanes. Members of the Organization to which the user who processed the upstream task belongs, or its parent Organization, etc., can be narrowed down by [Position] and designated as candidate operators for the Swimlane in which the downstream task is located.
Using the workflow application shown below as an example, we will explain how to set the operator. In this application, the business rule that an applicant makes an application and their immediate supervisor approves it is defined (the process for non-approval is omitted). According to this rule, a manager Swimlane is set up to satisfy the condition that the applicant’s immediate supervisor approves the application.
The composition of the target Organization is assumed to be as shown in the figure below.
a. Nominate members of the same Organization by Position
When a user completes an “Apply” task, the Organization to which the user belongs is determined as the Organization in charge of processing the “Applicant” Swimlane. The “Supervisor” Swimlane is set up so that members of the same Organization are filtered by whether they have a Position (using “With Position”) and designated as candidates to process “Approve” Tasks.
In the organization chart above, this setting assigns the approval task to Isobel Campbell if the application is submitted by Huw Bunford in Sales Section 1, and to Rod Jones if the application is submitted by Harriet Wheeler in Sales Section 2.
b. Nominate a member of the parent Organization by Position
In the situation described in a., when Isobel Campbell of Sales Section 1 submits an application, the approval task is assigned to Isobel Campbell herself, the only section manager in the section. This is contrary to the rule that the immediate supervisor must approve the application.
Let’s check who Isobel Campbell’s immediate supervisor is from the Organization chart. The parent Organization of Sales Section 1 is the Sales Department, and the head of the Sales Department, Peter McNeish, is Isobel Campbell’s direct superior.
To designate a operator beyond the boundaries of an Organization, such as the parent Organization, change the following part.
- “Members in the SAME organization of a user who operated tasks in the swimlane” should be replaced with “Members in the PARENT organization of a user who operated tasks in the swimlane”
The approval task will now be assigned to the head of the parent Organization, the Sales Department.
Thus, when setting up an operator it is possible not only to directly designate individual users or organization members, but also to set up candidate operators based on the organization’s structure and their positions within the organization. Furthermore, by combining swimlanes applying different settings, business processes can be made more flexible and efficient business design can be achieved.
Appendix: Separate routes according to Position
To accommodate applicants who need to set up different operators as in a. and b., one method is to manage general employee applications and section manager applications separately.
Alternatively, by applying the following branching settings a system can be achieved in which an approval task is automatically assigned to the appropriate operator, regardless of whether the application is submitted by a general employee or a section manager in a single application.
Instead of a “Supervisor” Swimlane, there will be a “Manager” Swimlane with setting a. applied and a “Department Head” Swimlane with setting b. applied. In each of these swimlanes, there will be a “Manager Approval” task and a “Department Head Approval” task. Immediately after the “Application” task, a branch gateway is placed, from which a path is created to branch off to the “Manager Approval” task and the “Department Head Approval” task.
In the branching condition, the Position of the organization member is used as the criterion. The route to the “Manager” Swimlane is set using the following conditions:
Process Start User Organization to which the user belongs Process Start Organization (No Position)On the other hand, the route to the “Department Head” Swimlane is set up under the following conditions:
Process Start User Organization to which the user belongs Process Start Organization (With Position)This setting will automatically select the appropriate approval flow based on whether the applicant has a Position or not.
