General Workflow Design Guidelines

Workflows

Make one or more workflows available to process the packages.

Each workflow is assigned one workflow scope. The possible workflow scopes are:

• Request (Demand Management)

• Packages (Deployment Management)

• Release Distributions (Deployment Management)

Beginning and Closing Steps

Workflow must have a beginning step.

No processing can be done if the workflow has no beginning step.

Workflow must have at least one step.

No processing can be done if the workflow has no steps.

Workflow must have at least one Close step.

The package line cannot be closed without a Close step in the workflow.

First workflow step cannot be a condition.

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.

The package or request will not close if a transition exists on `Success.'

Close step in subworkflow closes entire package line or 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.

Disabled steps cannot be used by the workflow so the process stops.

Each enabled workflow step must have at least one incoming transition (except the beginning step).

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

Transition value is not a valid validation value (error).

The validation value has changed since the transition has been made.

`Other Values' and `All Values' transitions must not exist in the same step.

`Other Values' transition is always ignored if an `All Values' transition exists.

Each workflow step must have at least one outbound transition.

The branch of the workflow stops indefinitely without closing the package line or request.

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

Some validation values do not have transitions defined.

Step with text or numeric validation must have an `Other Values' or `All Values' transition.

Because text and numeric validations are not limited, an `Other Values' or `All Values' transition should be defined.

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 defined on the Security tab.

No one is authorized to act on the step without a security group.

Execution Steps

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

No one is authorized to act on the step without a security group.

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.

AND or OR condition steps must have at least two incoming transitions.

An AND or OR condition with only one incoming transition will always immediately be true and have no effect.

Subworkflows

Subworkflows must have at least one Return step.

Must include a Return step.

Top-level workflow must not have a Return step.

Only subworkflows have a Return step.