General Workflow Design Guidelines

Workflows

Make one or more workflows available to process the request.

Each workflow is assigned one of the following workflow scopes:

• Request (Demand Management)

• Packages (Deployment Management)

• Release distributions (Deployment Management)

Beginning and Closing Steps

Workflow must have a beginning step.

No processing can occur if the workflow has no starting point.

Workflow must have at least one step.

No processing can occur if the workflow has no steps.

Workflow must have at least one Close step.

Request cannot be closed without a Close step in the workflow.

First workflow step cannot be a condition step.

Workflow processing may not be correct if the first step is a condition.

Close steps must not have a transition on `Success' or `Failure.' Return steps must have no outgoing transitions.

Request cannot close if a transition exists on `Success.'

Close step in subworkflow closes entire request.

Do not include a Close step in a subworkflow unless you want to close the workflow in the subworkflow.

All Steps

All steps must be enabled.

Because the workflow cannot use disabled steps, the process stops.

Each step (except the first step) must have at least one incoming transition.

It is not possible to flow to a workflow step without an incoming transition.

Transition value is not a validation value (error).

The validation value has changed since the transition was made.

`Other Values' and `All Values' transitions must not occur at the same step.

If both transitions occur at a step, the `Other Values' transition is ignored.

Each workflow step must have at least one outbound transition.

Without an outbound transition, the workflow branch stops indefinitely without closing the request.

Each value from a list-validated validation must have an outbound transition.

Some validation values do not have defined transitions.

Steps with either a text or numeric validation must have an `Other Values' or `All Values' transition.

Because text and numeric validations are not limited, you must specify an `Other Values' or `All Values' transition.

Notifications with reminders must not be set on results that have transitions.

Transition into the Return Step does not match the validation.

Decision Steps

Each decision step must have at least one security group, user, or token specified on the Security tab.

No one can act on the step if security is not configured.

Execution Steps

Each manual execution step must have at least one security group, user, or token specified on the Security tab.

No one can act on the step if security is not configured.

An immediate execution step must not have a transition to itself on `Success' or `Failure.'

The workflow could loop indefinitely.

Condition Steps

A condition step must not have a transition to itself.

A condition with a transition to itself could cause the workflow to run indefinitely.

An AND or OR step must have at least two incoming transitions.

An AND or OR condition with only one incoming transition is always true and has no effect.

Subworkflows

Subworkflows must have at least one Return step.

Must include a Return step.

A top-level workflow must not have a Return step.

Only subworkflows can have a Return step.