IBM® Enterprise
Records includes
workflows that help automate the review and disposal of record categories,
record folders, volumes, and records. A workflow includes the tasks,
procedural steps, personnel, input and output information, and tools
for each step in a business process.
You can modify existing workflows and create new workflows. Most
of the IBM Enterprise
Records workflows
are launched automatically as a result of either the Disposition Sweep
process or the execution of an action associated with the workflow.
The Physical Record Management workflow and the Create Record Folder
workflow must be manually launched.
When you create a disposition phase in a disposition schedule,
you must associate a disposition action and a disposition workflow
with the phase. At the end of the retention period of entities in
a particular phase, the entities are due for disposition. You must
manually initiate the disposition action which launches the associated
disposition workflow. For more information on the disposition process,
see:
Before you can start using the workflows, you need to complete
configuration tasks. These tasks are usually completed during the IBM Enterprise
Records installation. For more
information, see Configuring workflows in
the IBM Enterprise
Records Installation
and Upgrade Guide.
Types of workflows
The
following are workflows provided in
IBM Enterprise
Records.
Workflow notifications
The
system displays notification messages that include information about
the status, failure, and validation errors encountered while the workflow
is in progress. There are four types of notification messages that
include the following:
Transcript
A transcript is an XML file that
the system generates when the disposition action is performed successfully
on entities approved for disposition. This file contains information
about:
- The success or failure of the disposition action performed on
each entity in the batch.
- The status of each step in the workflow and the reason for the
status.
The system automatically sends this file as an attachment to
the records manager. The records manager can view this file, save
it to a local drive, or open the file in a browser.
Warning
IBM Enterprise
Records displays a warning message
when the value specified for the various fields in a particular step
of a workflow is incorrect or missing from required fields. If you
have not specified the value of the Location field
in the Physical Transfer step of the Interim Transfer workflow, IBM Enterprise
Records displays the warning message.
Information and status messages
IBM Enterprise
Records displays information and
status messages for the Physical Record Management and Create Record
Folder workflows. The messages contain the status of entities or any
other relevant information about the entities. For example, if the
current holder of a physical entity has delayed the release of the
entity,
IBM Enterprise
Records places
the message as a work item in the Inbox of the person who is scheduled
to receive the entity. For more information about the information
and status messages, see:
Failures and exceptions
Failure and exception
messages show the affected entities and the reasons for the failure
of a workflow step, For example, you completed the Cutoff step for
a batch of ten entities and out of these ten entities, two entities
have been reopened. In this situation, this message indicates that
the Cutoff action could not be completed for the two entities and
displays the cause of the failure.
In the Message step, you can
click Complete to complete the workflow step
that has failed, and remove the work item from the Inbox. You can
correct the problem and launch the workflow again to complete the
step properly. In the example given above, you can close the two entities
for which the Cutoff step failed and launch the workflow again.