You may receive BP-related email notifications that contain hyperlinks that represent actions in a BP workflow.
Actions you can take via email are shown as hyperlinks and represent actions you can take in a workflow step. When you click the hyperlink, an email reply is generated. Your reply text becomes a general comment in the BP record, except in the case of Document Type business processes; reply text is not attached for those business processes. Assignees need to be pre-assigned on the workflow steps for the email workflow action to occur. Attachments can be included in the workflow action replies if the BP is set up to include them. Email clients supported for workflow actions via email include HTML and text. If you are using a text client for your email, the possible actions are listed, but are static text (not hyperlinks). In that case, you can reply to the email manually and provide the appropriate To, Subject, and body text. Your subject should be the name of the action you want to take as shown in the email notification.
Your subject should be the name of the action you want to take as shown in the email notification.
Tasks that are assigned to you are listed in your Tasks logs. The Tasks logs display business process-related tasks in which you are being requested to participate. Refer to Unifier General User Guide for details about the Tasks log.
The following tasks may appear in your Tasks logs:
- You are part of a business process workflow and are requested or required to take some sort of action.
- You have been invited to join a discussion group by another user who is requesting assistance with drafting comments or markups on a BP (Classic View only). These are indicated as being sent for "Discussion" in the Tasks log.
- You are designated as the Initiation step assignee for an auto-created business process.
Validation for email task flow actions are as follows:
- Email address must match that of the assignee
- Valid Notification ID/Password (NID)
- Active (Unifier) User
- BP record has not moved or been terminated
- Record has not already met completion policy
- Assignees must be Preassigned at the destination step
To respond to a workflow task directly from email
- Open the email notification.
If Response via email has been enabled in the business process design, the email includes action links. The email message also displays data from the business process form.
- To take action, review the email, then click an action link. In an email program such as Outlook, this will create a response email.
Note: (1) Do not change the subject line of the email. Changing the subject line text will cause the email response to fail. (2) If you are using a text client for your email, you can open a new email message, copy the subject line of the notification, and paste it into the subject line of the response email.
- You can add text to the body of the email. This will create a General Comment on the business process record.
Note: Email response text is not saved as General Comments for Document Type business processes.
- You can add file attachments to your email response.
If the business process has been set up to accept attachments, they will be added to the record in Unifier. If the business process does not allow attachments, then attachments you add to the email response will be ignored. If a file already exists on the record with the same name as the file you are trying to send, then your attachment will be ignored.
- Send the email, which will send the action to Unifier.
For all Workflow Business Processes where the steps are enabled for “Enable Response via email,” the following Workflow processes are completed when you perform, or approve, a task via email:
Capture of Workflow progress elements in the form:
- Taken By
- Action Name
- Taken On
Formula calculations on the form:
When record progresses to the next step, the system evaluates the formulas on the form that are associated to the Workflow.
Form level validations:
Form-level validations are applied. If any errors, it will not advance the Workflow to the next step.
Additional form processing:
- Auto population (sum of line items)
- Dynamic Data Set (DDS) check: The system performs DDS checks prior to routing the record to the next step when action is taken through Email.
Note: If the step where the action is being performed has a DDS behavior set field which is required, and that field is empty, then the record will not progress to the next step.
Reset Form: Data Elements (DEs) in the form that have the Data Entry as Reset are processed when the record is progressed to the next step via email action.
Auto-Population for Behavior Set DEs
The data fields in a business process form can be updated through auto-population, including those in a behavior set of a DDS. Auto-population can occur during the creation of a form or during the selection of a picker value within a form. If the value of a Master Data Element clears a previously entered value of a behavior set data element and disables it, then any fields auto-populated from the behavior set data element are re-evaluated.
Similarly, any formulas dependent on the behavior set data element are re-evaluated. For example, in an Upper or Detail form, when a behavior set DE changes, the auto-population fields do not change. In the case of selecting a picker value, when the value of a picker changes, the auto-population fields do change.
Additional Processing
Query and Summary DEs:
Query and summary-based DEs, in the subsequent forms of the Workflow, are populated correctly when the record is progressed to the next step via email action.
Other post processing logic:
- Reverse auto population
- Roll-up to Cost sheet
- Roll-ups to other sheets
- Auto Creation – S Step
- Auto Creation – I Step and so forth