The purpose of the Branch Step is to allow the administrator to provide a path for the workflow to follow based on how a user responds to a question in the form. For example, a form to allow a submission for a new course may have a different path depending upon whether it is a graduate or undergraduate course.
Within a Branch step, you will be able to define both the default route (if any), and one or more routes to occur if certain conditions are met.
Click on the branch step in the workflow you wish to edit, and the flyout will appear to the right allowing you to modify the settings for the step.
Branch Step Options
Step Label
Each step in the workflow can have a custom label applied do it. These labels help to identify the steps, both in the workflow and when reviewing them on the proposal.
For example, the default step name for an approval step is 'Approval' - but if every step were titled as 'Approval', it would be difficult to troubleshoot or identify where in the process it is.
The Step Label allows you to customize the name of a step so it more accurately represents this part of the process. This will help you keep your workflow organized as you are building out your process, and help provide clarity for reviewers who need to approve multiple times during the process.
The Step Label also appears in the Approval Notification that is emailed to the reviewer to help them identify where they are in the workflow process.
To change the Step Label, click into the step to open the configuration panel, then click into the Step Label field. Once you have updated the Step Label, it will save automatically and the step in the workflow will update to match.
Default Route
When a Branch step is added to the workflow, it includes a default route and a route to follow if conditions are met. The Default Route is to define what path the workflow follows if none of the conditions for the alternate path, or route, are met.
As the default, it will only contain one setting to configure:
- This route will run if no match is found below.
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This option will allow you to configure a specific workflow for scenarios that don't fit the other routes you create. For steps that should occur if the route conditions are not met, you can drag them into the space within the Default Route.
- This route will never run.
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This option will remove the Default Route from the Branch step entirely, and will assume that all scenarios fit into the other routes created in the Route Configuration panel, or else the entire branch will be skipped.
Routes
A Route in the branch step determines the path that is followed when the conditions specified are met. A branch can have multiple routes if needed, but will default to a single route, labeled as Route 1.
Within each route, the conditions will need to be specified to determine whether it occurs. For example, if you have a form to process a new course, the path may vary depending upon whether the course is graduate or undergraduate level.
Establishing a route will involve indicating whether it requires all statements to be true, or any of the statements. For example, if you are creating a route that will be followed if the form submitter selects 'Undergraduate' for Level, then the option would be set to occur when all statements are true. To create a route based on this statement, the following steps would be followed:
- Drag the branch step into the workflow.
- If there will be no default steps to apply, set the default route to This route will never run. This will ensure that either the workflow follows the path provided in the route, or the step will be skipped.
- Under Route 1, leave the Route here setting set to when all of the following are true. This will ensure that this route only occurs if the Level field has the option Undergraduate selected.
- In the next drop down, select the field that will be used for the route determination. In this example, it would be the Levels field.
- Once the field is selected, another drop down will appear which contains the operator to construct the true or false statement. For this field, as a radio set, the options will allow you to choose between is or is not, or if the field is empty or not empty. For this example, we would select the is option - indicating that the statement is true if the field has a specific selection.
- The operators available within a route will vary based on the type of field used for selection.
- Once the operator is specified, the value can be selected. For this example, select Undergraduate.
This now establishes the first route, which will only occur if the Level field has the option of Undergraduate selected. If the workflow should have a different path to follow when Graduate is selected, then a second route can be created by clicking the +Add Route button, and following the same steps - except using the value of Graduate.
The workflow now contains a branch with two paths - one that is followed based on a decision within the form. You can now drag and drop any steps into the branches to create custom paths for each option. Once the steps within the branch are completed, the workflow will continue with the next steps in the path.
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