Processes pane in Web Access 10

asked on February 8, 2016

We're really liking the new streamlined interface of Web Access 10!

I have a question regarding the Processes pane on the right sidebar. It seems that, if the selected entry has not gone through any business processes yet, the pane displays a "Start Business Process" button that launches a dialogue box showing a list of available business processes. BUT if the document has gone through a business process, it converts into a history format.

I was talking to a user the other day and they found this a bit confusing. They remarked that they would expect the "Processes" pane to display a list of available business processes that can be run on that entry (in this case a job applicant's folder), and for historical data to be displayed under a separate "History" tab. Most users that are in charge of this particular approval process aren't interested in historical data. They just want to look at the folder's metadata and then select the BP to run, e.g. "Route to Hiring Manager" or "Archive Applicant". I showed them the Right Click > Start Business Process option but that felt a bit awkward for them (it requires discovery, especially for new users).

Anyway, not sure if there's any immediate solution or workaround, but I figured I'd forward their feedback to the Laserfiche development team.

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replied on February 8, 2016 • Show version history

Hrm, thanks for the feedback Ege! This isn't really different from how processes has been done since the initial 9.0 release - in fact, I believe the primary difference is that we actually added the favorite business processes there if you hadn't yet run one in the first place - is this a concern that's been there for a while, or is the fact that now people see the processes there in one case they are interested in seeing them there all the time? Can you discuss more scenarios where people may be likely to run multiple processes on the same document over and over? Thanks!

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replied on February 8, 2016 • Show version history

Thank you for the quick reply Pava. This is a new client and it's the first time we're showing them Web Access 10, so they didn't have any pre-existing expectations.

The process we're implementing is a hiring/onboarding process. Forms submitted by each applicant get stored in their folder. Hiring staff move the folders along the different steps in the process using BPs. User A selects the folder (containing just the resume), clicks "Start Business Process" in the processes tab, and starts the "Send Link to Application" BP. After the applicant submits all their application forms, User B selects their folder and wants to run the "Notify Staffing Consultant for Interview" BP. Except now the Processes tab has been replaced with the historical data of "Send Link to Application" BP, which User B doesn't care about.

We basically want to avoid scenarios where User B gets confused and goes to User A and says, "hey, how come I no longer see the green "start business process" button on my processes tab when I select the folder?" The design can be confusing in that regard.

I think if the pane looked something like this, it would make a lot more sense (maybe the button could change to "Start Another Business Process" or something if a BP has already run on that entry):

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replied on February 8, 2016

Awesome, thanks for the scenarios. We'll take a look and see if something makes sense.

Another couple questions:

1) aside from this scenario, have you seen a scenario where this might have come up previously, if the customer knew it was possible to do this in the first place (since we didn't have it before).

2) Do you think having a more obvious toolbar button for the BPs would make this more of a non-issue? That is, do you have a sense of how much of this is just not knowing where to go vs. hey I really like it at this place?

Thanks!

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replied on February 8, 2016 • Show version history

Regarding your first question, I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but we do have another client that runs multiple business processes on each entry. Specifically, an invoice processing scenario. They select a group of invoices and run the "Process Invoices" BP. The invoices that get validated move to the Validated folder. The ones with issues move to the Issues folder and get flagged with the appropriate error (in a metadata field called Status). The user then fixes the errors and re-runs the BP, until everything is validated.

They are using Client 9.2, but if we moved them to version 10 and deployed Web Access for this process, they would find it confusing I think, just like the first client I described, since they would run into the same scenario with the green "Start Business Process" button disappearing from the Processes tab if a BP has run on the selected entry.

We actually try to avoid training users to right-click stuff as much as we can, because it's kind of clunky from a UX perspective. With the client that is using the accounting process above, we actually have all the (five) BPs they need accessible on the toolbar, each mapped to a keyboard shortcut. That way all they have to do is select the docs and run the BP they want using the keyboard. I haven't looked into whether that is possible in WA 10 yet, but I'm certain the need is going to arise very soon, at least for our clients.

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