Overall Steps for Creating a Design
For business processes, shells, and other components to work effectively in Unifier, you will need to use the following steps to create the designs for them in uDesigner. It is always helpful to gather all requirements for the business process, shell, or manager before you begin creating data structures or starting the design.
1. Create a data structure. | This structure will include the data elements to be used on the forms. The data structure must be in place before you start the design process. (See Creating a Data Structure.) |
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2. Launch the design. | This step initializes the design process. (See Starting a New Design (Edit Studio).) |
3. Design the forms. | These forms will be used to collect and store data for the business process, shell, manager, or other component. (See the instructions beginning with Designing a Form.) |
4. Create the workflow (for appropriate business processes only). | As you design the workflow, you will assign the forms you design to each step. (See the instructions beginning with Starting a Workflow.) |
5. Specify a reference process. | (Optional) Reference processes link business processes and forms together for the purpose of sharing information. They must be included on any form that uses a BP picker, line item picker, account code picker, or fund picker. Reference processes populate the fields on these pickers. (See Adding a Reference Process to Auto-Populate Data.) |
6. Design a log for the business process. | This log is what users see in the right pane of the workspace screen. (See the instructions beginning with Creating a Business Process Log (Standard or Picker).) |
Tips on Designing Good Business Processes and Forms
Users are more willing to use business processes and forms that are well-designed. Design is a balance of many factors, and high usability requires thinking "in the shoes" of the users. You can greatly enhance your forms' usability by using the following suggestions:
- Before you begin designing a business process, sketch out the workflow on paper. A sketch can help you see where you might need a sub-workflow or a conditional routing, and can clarify the soundness of the business process before you solidify it in production. This will also show you what kind of forms you will need for each step of the workflow.
- Before you create your forms, sketch them out on paper. This will help you organize the data you want for upper and detail forms, and help you determine exactly how the form will be used in the workflow. This can also help you avoid creating form areas that require too much scrolling (particularly helpful for log layouts!)
- Add borders around blocks. They make information stand out clearly and more readably.
- Use auto-population whenever you can so that users do not have to complete every field of the form.
- Plan field labels carefully. If they are too long, they will wrap awkwardly if there is not enough room. Make the labels succinct and meaningful.
- Make tab labels descriptive. A label that reads RFI says little. Instead, use a label such as Description or RFI Comments.
- For log layouts, watch the widths of columns: Too many wide columns means columns on the right might be clipped, and the user will have to scroll to see information. Try to keep column titles to one line.
Last Published Monday, June 3, 2024