A project that uses a workflow as provided in the ATG distribution can include any assets, without constraints on their number, type, and state. You can modify a workflow to include an asset placeholder, so a project must contain an asset of the specified type before it can advance to the next task. You can further constrain requirements for project completion by setting certain conditions on the supplied asset—for example, specify that an asset property must contain a specific value before the project can be deployed.
You can specify file and repository assets as asset placeholders. When a workflow includes an asset placeholder, its project indicates whether the asset is missing in the Assets tab with the message Required Assets Not Yet Supplied, followed by the number of required assets that are missing from the project.
In order to create an asset placeholder, you edit the workflow as follows:
Declare the Asset Placeholder.
You declare an asset placeholder through a Declare action element. You typically insert the Declare element near the beginning of the workflow, so it is available to subsequent task elements.
Assign the Asset Placeholder to a Task.
You specify an asset placeholder as the subject of a workflow task. In any project that uses this workflow, users cannot advance beyond the task before the asset is added to the project.
Optionally, Set Asset Placeholder Conditions.
For example, you might want authors of certain projects to create or modify a press release before they can submit the project for review. Accordingly:
The workflow for these projects includes a Declare action element that defines the asset placeholder Press Release.
To make this asset placeholder available to the Author task, it is declared before the workflow’s Author task element.
Thus, projects that use this workflow must include the asset in the project and supply its content before they can advance the project to the next task.
