Workflows

Overview

You know what workflow is. It's everything that happens after a form is submitted. Jane needs to approve the purchase of a laptop when a new hire is onboarded. Roger has to deploy a new server so the team in Dallas can start development.
Many workflow processes have common features like send an email, request approval or create a ticket. Getting transparency into the process can be difficult. Did that email get sent? Jane is on vacation, who is handling her approvals? Kinetic Data's Workflow will brings transparence to the process.
Maybe you do not know your process. How do we on-board new hires? Kinetic Workflows work as a self documenting automatic repeatable representation of your process. Once the process has been documented it will be easy to find opportunities to make improvements. This is how Kinetic Workflows let you own your process.

Components of Kinetic Workflow

The Kinetic Workflow engine has four main components. Trees, Routines, Handlers and connector make up the bulk of the process development. To build with the component the Kinetic Platform has a GUI interface. Kinetic Platform developers use the Workflow interface to create Trees that they populate with Routines, Handlers and connectors.

Trees

Trees are the entry point to Workflow. When a form is submitted a Webhook fires off a tree that begins the process. Every Tree has a start node where the tree starts execution. The process continues through a path of connectors, Handlers and Routines.

Routines

Routines can be thought of as encapsulating part of a process that is used by many Workflows. As an example lets say all of your Workflows send and email. The logic to look up the recipient of the email and send the email could all be duplicated in every Workflow. Or the logic for the sending an email could be put in a Routine and reused in every Workflow.

Handlers

Handler are workers of the Workflow process. Handlers are snippets of Ruby code that do everything from CRUD operations, to data formatting/manipulation, to starting a process and so much more. The code to look up an email recipient could be in a Recipient Lookup Handler and sending the email is done by the SMTP Handler.

Connectors

Workflow does not always follow the same path. Connectors allow you to create a path of execution through your Workflow that can change. As an example a new hire is being onboarded. The new hire is going to be remote which means they will get a cell phone instead of a desk phone. When HR fills out the form to start the new hire process they choose "remote worker". In Workflow when the process comes to the point where it needs to know which phone to invoice for it will "check" to see if the new hire is a remote worker or not.