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 can 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.
NOTE 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.
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.
- Apply Template: Identifies whether to apply the security permissions defined on the Template Security tab to the document when the document enters the present 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.
- 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.
- Reset lifecycle on new version
- Select this option to restart the lifecycle state cycle when the user creates a new version of the document.
- 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 options:
- 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 window.
- In the Lifecycle 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 Allow Demotion from State 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 Allow Demotion from State to prevent demotion. For example, you might prevent demotion of a loan document in its final state of
Closed.
- Select or clear Apply Security Template on Entry to specify whether to apply the security
permissions defined on the Template Security tab to the document when the document enters the present state.
- 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 window.
- Modify the definitions as desired:
- If you want to rename the state, delete the existing name in the Lifecycle state name field and enter the desired name.
- If you want to change the Allow Demotion from State status, select or clear the check box.
- If you want to change the Apply Security Template on Entry 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. (You cannot select more than one state at a time.)
- Click Remove to delete the selected state from your list.