Workflows and approvals

Decision and Task blocks

Lesson 5 of 9 5 min

Outcomes, required notes, and assignment by person, permission or field.

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In this lesson

  1. A decision
  2. Required notes
  3. Tasks
  4. Assignment

Outcomes, required notes, and assignment by person, permission or field. These two are the human blocks: everything else in the palette is plumbing around them.

A decision

A decision puts the record in front of somebody and waits. Its outcomes are the buttons they get, and each outcome is a separate path out of the block. Two outcomes is the common case, endorse and reject, but a decision can carry more where the process genuinely branches.

Required notes

An outcome can require a note before it can be chosen. Put it on rejection, always. A rejection without a reason costs a phone call and a day, and the note becomes part of the record rather than part of someone's memory.

Tasks

A task block assigns work rather than a verdict: revise and resubmit, attach the certificate, book the inspection. The run waits for the task to be completed and then carries on. Tasks are what make the reject lane useful rather than merely accurate.

Assignment

Three ways to say who. A named person is the obvious one and the most brittle. A permission means everyone holding it, which survives staff changes and covers leave. A field on the record means the run follows the data, so the subcontractor's own representative reviews their own submission. Prefer the last two where you can.

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