Create and Edit Workflows

You can use the Product Management Search Workflows page to search for workflows such as change orders, change requests, problem reports, and corrective actions.

The workflow header attributes on the page header persist across all the tabs, providing context for the workflow. Here are some actions you can perform on the workflow.

• Search across workflow attributes.
• Use filter chips for header attributes, additional attributes, and extensible flexfields.
• Use the spotlight to quickly navigate through the affected objects.
• Redline the item directly in the change order context.
• Drag (select and move) items from the clipboard or spotlight to the Affected Objects tab.
• Preview attachments.
• View the workflow statuses and approvals in one table.
• Manage participants for multiple statuses in the same page.
• Use filter chips on tasks and relationships.
• Click the workflow links in OTBI reports to open the workflow in Redwood.

You can also perform additional actions using the More Actions (...) button.

Create Workflow

You can create workflows in multiple ways:

• Click the Add (+) icon from the Product Management Search pages for Workflow, Workflow Approvals, and Workflow History.
• Use the links available in Actions on the Product Management home page.

  If you're editing an item that has a needs approval rule, you can either create a new change order or add the item to an existing change order.

  If you're editing an item, you can also use the Assign to action to assign the item to a new or existing change order, change request, problem report, or corrective action.

Identify Workflow Status Using Color Codes

You can identify the workflow status by the color codes in the workflow search results and the status shown next to the workflow title.

View and Modify the Required Descriptive and Extensible Flexfields

You can view and modify the required descriptive and extensible flexfields attributes when you create the change order from Product Management Search page, move the affected objects, or assign the item to a change order. Both global and context sensitive descriptive flexfields can be set as required.

Note: The workflow deep links in the OTBI reports open the workflow in Redwood when profile option (ORA_ACA_WORKFLOW_REDWOOD_ENABLED) is set to Yes.

The following header attributes are hidden by default for change orders and change requests, but you can display them using business rules:

• Supplier Site
• Reported By
• Reported Date

You can access data in the following tabs on a workflow:

• Attributes
• Affected Objects
• Attachments
• Workflow and Tasks with sub-tabs
  • Activities
  • Tasks
• Relationships
• History

Navigate to a Redwood Page Using Link in Notification

You can navigate to a Redwood page by clicking the change number link on the notification. To use this feature, set the profile option ORA_ACA_WORKFLOW_REDWOOD_ENABLED to Y.

Create a Duplicate Workflow

You can create a new workflow based on an existing one in Product Management. Use the workflow page-level action named Duplicate.

Click Duplicate to open the Duplicate <workflow name> drawer.

In the drawer, you can select a different change type. For example, you can create a change order from a change request or a change request from problem report. You can also select which entities— Attributes, Affected objects, Affected object additional attributes, Attachments, Tasks, Relationships, and Relate to workflow—you want to include or exclude when copying them to the new workflow. All entities are selected by default. Except for Relate to workflow, the others are organized into tabs within the new workflow.

If the Relate to workflow remains selected, then a relationship will be created between the source and the new workflow.

Attributes

You can search for attributes across sections, which can be accessed directly by selecting a filter chip. Includes filter chips for General Information, Additional Attributes and Extensible Flexfield pages:

• Additional Attributes
  • Includes global descriptive flexfields followed by context sensitive descriptive flexfields.
  • Includes the Migrated attribute (Yes/No) that indicates if a workflow was migrated using import.
  • To edit context-sensitive descriptive flexfields on a change line, navigate to the context-sensitive segment, select the relevant attribute section, and create or update values in the Additional Attributes drawer.
  Note:

  • In the Main section of the Attributes tab, the visibility of the Source, Customer, Supplier and Manufacturer attributes depends on the workflow type.
  • To view change line context sensitive descriptive flexfields in the Additional attributes drawer, you must change the Context Display Type to List of Values in the Descriptive flexfield setup page.

You can create extensible flexfield attribute groups as pages if you want the filter chips to appear on the Workflow Attributes tab. Here's how:

• Access the Manage Extensible Flexfields task in the Setup and Maintenance work area.
• Search for the flexfield code EGO_CHANGE_EFF and edit the Change Extended Attributes.
• In Change Type Details, select the Add (+) button to create a new page for the selected change type. You can edit the Display Name as you'd like it to appear in the filter chip.
• In the table, use the Add (+) button to add your extensible flexfields to the newly created page.

Affected Objects

Here are some tasks you can perform on the Affected Objects tab.

• Select affected objects using the Select and Add Items icon (the item picker).
• Drag and drop (select and move) items from the clipboard or spotlight to the affected objects tab.
• Search affected objects table to filter rows.
• Edit the new revision, new lifecycle phase, and effective date directly inline.
  • You can also use copy and paste to edit these attributes.
• Edit descriptive flexfields in a drawer (side panel).
• Export all the affected object lines or just the selected ones.
• Cancel lines.
• Move lines.
• Copy selected affected objects to the clipboard.

Here are some additional details on affected objects:

• If your administrator has set up an access control list, your access to affected objects will depend on the permissions specified in that list.
• When you click an affected object number link on a change order, change request, problem report, or corrective action, it appears in the workflow context, enabling you to view the affected object and easily return to the change request, problem report, or corrective action.
• You must edit the affected object lifecycle phase and effective date separately.
• When you add an affected object to an engineering change order, the new revision is automatically updated through REST APIs, and during import. However, the revision isn't automatically incremented in the following scenarios:
  • The affected item is included in another change order that is currently in Scheduled status.
  • The existing revision doesn't not follow a standard or recognizable pattern, making it unclear what the next revision should be. For example, if the initial revision is set as .001 or Z.

Data Presence Indicators

Here are the presence indicator icons appearing on the tabs of an affected object.

The presence indicator for redlines is also visible in Spotlight if any of the change controlled entities have been redlined. Here’s a list of fields for a change type on which presence indicators are available:

• Engineering change order

  • Attributes

  • Attachments

  • Structures

  • AMLs

• Change order without revision control
  • Attributes
  • AMLs
• Commercialization change order

  • Attributes
  • Structure
  • Associations

Note: To upgrade the data presence indicators introduced for change orders in update 25D, you must run the following scheduled process.

• Upgrade Product Management Data
• Functional Area: Changes
• Feature: Update data presence indicators for affected items

Fill up and fill down

You can select a cell, grab the small square in the corner, and drag it vertically or horizontally to fill adjacent cells (or select and drag cells) to modify affected objects.

To perform bulk edits, select multiple cells and drag them up or down.

To quickly update cells, right-click a cell and select Auto Fill.

Note:

When you copy and paste objects or do a bulk update of effective dates to update the same effective date on more than 10 change lines, a scheduled process is triggered to update the dates on click of Save. The change order is put on Hold status until effective dates on change lines are updated.

Resolve Revision Conflicts

When there are revision conflicts on the affected objects in the change order, you can resolve them using the Resolve Revision Conflict action available on the Affected Objects tab. Additionally, the application will prompt you to address any conflicts when you attempt to change the workflow status to Approval or Interim Approval.

Note:

• If your administrator has set up an access control list for items, your access will depend on the permissions specified in that list.

• When you click an affected object number link on a change order, change request, problem report, or corrective action, it appears in the workflow context, enabling you to view the affected object and easily return to the change request, problem report, or corrective action.

• You must edit the affected object lifecycle phase and effective date separately.

• When you add an affected object to an engineering change order, the new revision is automatically updated during import. However, the revision isn't automatically incremented in the following scenarios:

  • The affected item is included in another change order that is currently in Scheduled status.

  • The existing revision doesn't follow a standard or recognizable pattern, making it unclear what the next revision should be. For example, if the initial revision is set as .001 or Z.

Permissions for Adding Affected Objects When Access Control List is Configured

On the workflow object:

• Go to Affected Objects tab and add the affected object.

  You will require the Manage Permission on Affected Objects.

On the item object:

• Click Actions on an item. You will require the View or Manage permission on the item.

• Select Assign to Change Order and Save to change order.

To create a new change order, you will require the Create Permission.

To assign the item to an existing change you will require the Manage permission on the Affected Objects Tab for the specific workflow.

Open an Affected Item in Change Context

When you open an item in the context of a change order, here's what you must know:

• A hyperlink Change order <name> Context appears along with the page title to indicate that you’re in the change order context. Clicking this link will take you to the previous page you were on, either the Affected Objects page or the Pending Item Revision page.
• You can use the drop-down list (next to the change order name) to select the other affected objects, while viewing an object in the change order context.

Configure the Send Object Action

You can use business rules (in Oracle Visual Builder Studio) to configure the following fields that appear in the Send Object action.

• Messages
• Roles
• Users

Undo Redlines

In structure and AML tabs in a change context, you can undo the redlines of both saved and unsaved changes of an item's pending revision. The Undo Redlines button is enabled when one or more redlined rows are selected. An Undo icon appears against the selected rows.

Here's how you undo redlines in a structure:

1. Open the change order and navigate to the item structure page.
2. Select the rows in which you want to undo the redline and click Undo Redlines.
3. You can cancel the undo redline. Select the row you want to cancel the undo action on, and again click Undo Redlines.

The undo action is complete only after you click Save. Note that the action is only displayed in the pending revision context.

Reschedule Change Lines

You can reschedule the change lines on a change order in the scheduled status, by updating the effective date and clicking Reschedule.

Publish Workflows

To publish workflows, on the workflow click Actions > Change Publication Criteria.

Here are some additional details:

• You can publish engineering and commercialization change orders, and change orders without revision control as an XML package by selecting all or one of the following entities:
  • General Information
  • Affected objects
  • Header attachments
  • Affected object redlines only
  • Affected object attachments
  • Affected object structures
  • Affected object AML
• You can publish change orders in any status.
• You can’t publish :

  • Structures on affected objects for change orders without revision control.
  • Attachments and approved manufacturers lists (AMLs) for commercialization change orders.

Edit Context Sensitive Descriptive flexfields

You can edit the context sensitive descriptive flexfields on change lines, navigate to the context sensitive segment of the change line, and click the specific attribute section to create or update the values in the Additional attributes drawer.

Add Attachments on Change Lines

You can add attachments to the change lines on workflows such as change orders, change requests, problem reports, and corrective actions.

Calculate Use-Up Date

You can calculate the use-up date and update effective dates on components.

If you’ve enabled the Supply Chain Planning offering, you can use the Calculate Use-Up Date action on the change order’s affected objects table to view and select the use-up dates defined in the planning application. This helps you calculate the optimal effective dates for structure components that are being removed or replaced on engineering and commercialization change orders.

View Redline Information in Item Context

You can leverage the item page level action Red Lines Only to view item redlines quickly.

Selecting Redlines Only will only display tabs that have redlined data on the selected revision, and only display the redlined fields within each tab. In the Redlines Only mode you can select the action Show All to return to the standard view that displays all tabs and fields.

The Redlines Only action will still be selected when you navigate between items and item revisions in the following ways.

• Navigate between affected object revisions.
• Navigate between the items in spotlight.
• Select pending revisions on the item.

Change the Item Class on Pending Changes and Enable Needs Approval Rule

You can modify the item class in a pending change. The modification will appear as a redline and be recorded in the change history. Additionally, you can configure a needs approval rule so that an item class change automatically triggers a change order.

Note: You can’t redline other fields when you redline an item class.

Attachments

Undo Redlines

Here are some tasks you can perform on this tab.

• Add attachments.
• Preview attachments in a drawer (side panel).
  • Use the arrows to scroll through multiple attachments.
• Search for and filter attachments.
• Download attachments.

Access to Download and View Attachments from Workflows

Access to download and view attachments can be secured by your administrator using an access control list. To download and view attachments, navigate to the workflow page, click More Actions > Download Attachments. For more details, see Access Control Lists for Workflows

Workflow and Tasks

Displays the workflow statuses with the following color coding:

• Green- Completed statuses
• Blue- Current status
• Gray- Future statuses

The current status is selected by default (in the workflow status diagram on the Workflow and Tasks tab), or you can click the status to see the corresponding activity for that status.

You can configure business rules to show and hide column attributes on workflows, and show or hide the Activity and Tasks subtabs.

Activity Subtab

• By default, displays the activity for the current status. You can remove the status filter chip to see all statuses for the workflow in the activity table.
• Use filter chips to refine the results.
• Use the Manage Participants button to open a drawer where you can add participants for current or future statuses.

  • Select current or future status.

  • Enter participant names to get a list of users or roles with matching names and use checkboxes to select users.

    Use the checkbox or highlight a name to delete it.

Tasks Subtab

You can add and edit tasks using a drawer.

• By default, displays all open tasks.
• Supports filtering.
• Includes Completed Date.

Relationships

You can create relationships using a drawer. You can add filters on:

• Relationship Type
• Object Type
• Status
• Revision (Item relationships only)

You can create rules between workflow objects.

• Add rules in the drawer using the + icon.
• View rules in the drawer using the eye icon.

You can also configure business rules to show and hide column attributes.

History

You can add filters on:

• Audit Type
• Action Type
• Status
• Author
• Date (using Date Range)
• Action

You can also export all or selected history rows.

Workflow Actions

Here are some actions you can perform on the workflow:

Spotlight

• Click More Actions (...) and select the Spotlight action to copy all affected objects to the spotlight tab of the Navigator.
• Click the item number link in the Spotlight tab to see the item and its redlines in the change context.

For change requests, problem reports, and corrective actions, the affected items are in read-only mode, as you can't perform redlines.

Change Status

Use the More Actions (...) button to change the status of the workflow. You can also add participants while changing the status.

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