Lifecycle policy properties (General tab)
The lifecycle policy property sheet's General tab shows general information
about the selected lifecycle policies,
including its name, states, and lifecycle action.
If you make any changes to a lifecycle policy that is already assigned to a
document, those changes immediately apply to the existing document. Therefore,
you must take care when modifying a lifecycle policy already assigned to a document.
For example, let's say you add a lifecycle state to a policy assigned to an
existing document. You can position the state anywhere within the defined states.
Based on the document's current state, promoting or demoting the document's
state may move the document to the new state.
On the other hand, deleting a state causes any document that is currently in
that state to become invalid. Application operations and workflows that depend
on this state will fail.
CAUTION Do
not delete states on a policy assigned to documents on a production system unless
you have taken explicit steps to deal with these potentially serious consequences.
NOTE For
help opening a lifecycle policy property sheet, see View
and modify lifecycle policy properties.
- Name
- Displays the name of the lifecycle policy. If desired, you can rename the
lifecycle action by typing over the existing name.
The name is required and must start with a letter. The lifecycle policy
name can contain up to 64 characters (upper or lowercase letters, numbers,
spaces, and symbols).
- Description
- Provides descriptive information about the lifecycle policy. The description
can contain up to 255 characters and is optional. If desired, you can modify
this description.
Use the description to explain requirements of the lifecycle policy or
any other information you find useful. The name and description can be included
in reports or viewed with administrative tools.
- States
- Lists all defined states. The list box provides a table that shows you the
states added to the lifecycle policy. The table presents the following columns:
- Sequence: Shows you the order in which the document moves from one
state to another. The system automatically increments states as you add
them to the lifecycle policy.
- State: Lists the names of states added to the lifecycle policy.
- Demotion Allowed? Identifies whether users can demote a document to
its previous state:
- Y means a document assigned to this
lifecycle policy is eligible for demotion from the current state.
- N means a document assigned to this
lifecycle policy is not eligible for demotion from the current state.
- Command buttons
- The buttons at the right of the wizard screen provide options for creating
and modifying the lifecycle policy:
- Add - enables you to define a new state.
- Modify - enables you to modify the selected
state.
- Remove - deletes a selected state.
- Reset lifecycle on new version
- Select this option to restart the lifecycle state cycle when the user creates
a new version of the document.
- Preserve Direct ACEs
- Select this box to keep the document direct (non-inherited) access permissions. If this box is not selected, the document permissions are replaced with the lifecycle policy access permissions.
- Lifecycle Action
- Displays the name of the lifecycle action associated with this policy.
- Set up lifecycle states
- The following topics show you how to set up lifecycle states.
To change the state sequence
In the list box, select the state whose order you want to move and do one of
the following:
- Click Move Up to position the state ahead
of its previous state.
- Click Move Down to position the state below
of its next state.
To add a new state
- Click Add to display the State dialog
box.
- In the State Name field, enter the name
you want to assign to the state. For example, if you're creating a lifecycle
policy for a loan application, you could call the first state, Application.
- Specify whether the document in the current state is eligible for demotion:
- Select Demotion allowed
to allow for demotion. For example, a loan application in an Approval state
could be eligible for demotion to an Application state in case a customer
is unhappy with an approved loan under the terms offered. This would qualify
the loan document to re-enter the application process under different terms.
- Clear Demotion allowed
to prevent demotion. For example, you might prevent demotion of a loan document
in its final state of Closed.
- Click OK to save the newly defined state
and return to the previous screen. The new state appears at the bottom of
the list box.
To modify an existing state
- Select the desired state on the list box.
- Click Modify to display the State dialog
box.
- Modify the definitions as desired:
- If you want to rename the state, delete the existing name in the State
Name field and enter the desired name.
- If you want to change the Demotion allowed status, select or clear the check box.
- Click OK to save the modified state and
return to the previous screen.
To remove a state
- Select the state you want to remove from the list box. (You cannot select
more than one state at a time.)
- Click Remove to delete the selected state
from your list.