Workflows Page (tab) in an Asset Collection

The workflows tab allows users to start workflows for a particular asset collection, and it lists both the active and completed workflows, if any in this collection.

Start new Workflow button

This button opens a form for starting a workflow for this collection. If multiple workflow templates (types) are available, select the appropriate one. The new workflow requires a name and allows you to enter an optional description, both of which remain editable by managers.

Users can also create a workflow pertaining to a selected asset (see View or Edit > Actions > Additional asset actions). Such workflows record the identity of the selected asset but are otherwise ordinary.

If you are responsible for transitioning a workflow to the next state, you will also see it listed in the My Workflows page that you can access directly from the User menu in the top right corner of every page.

Workflows in Progress

This section lists any active (uncommitted) workflows of the collection. To access a particular workflow, select its row and click Go to Workflow. You will see a page showing you the status of the workflow and, depending on the workflow’s status and your role, allowing you to move the workflow to the next state.

Also depending on workflow’s status and your role, you can view or edit the workflow and view or execute various utility actions on it. A workflow can be used to process changes to multiple assets or changes to one specific asset. Each workflow isolates its changes to its own workflow copy, which does not affect other workflows or the production version, until and unless the workflow is committed back into production.

If the workflow was created for a specific asset, its name will appear in the row. Selecting the row and clicking Go to Asset will open the asset’s details view, which workflow editors can also modify.

Completed Workflows

This table works similarly to Workflows in Progress except that it lists the workflows that reached the terminal state. Typically, this means that changes have been finalized and committed to the asset collection. Users can view the history of workflow transitions. Each completed workflow shows its number of changed statements (triples), giving users information about the volume of changes made as part of the workflow.

For completed workflows with extensive changes, preserving such history of changed triples might occupy considerable space. Therefore, asset collection managers can select a completed workflow and use the Archive action to remove the audit trail from the change history. The change records are copied into a file in a new project that an administrator can access if the change history details are ever needed again. The only information retained in the audit trail is the transition history of the workflow itself, without any detail of the data changes.

To browse archived files, use the Base URI Management page in the Server Administration area. The files will be located in a project (or folder) called “Archive”. If these are no longer needed you can move them off the server.