Workflow stages

Workflows can indicate workflow progress by updating any field designated as a stage field.

For example, the Incident [incident] table has an Incident state field that indicates progress, but the service catalog uses the Stage field.

To indicate the workflow's progress through the possible stage values, the interface updates the Stage field selected in the workflow properties. Available fields depend on the table used by the workflow. If the field provides a choice list, then the choices are available as stage values for the workflow. If the field is a workflow field, it displays an icon to indicate the workflow's progress, as with the Service Catalog's Stage field.

Figure 1. Service Catalog Stage field with icons

After stages are added to the workflow, they can be assigned to each workflow activity. If an activity with an assigned stage is encountered when the workflow runs, the workflow engine assigns the stage to the record associated with the workflow context.

For workflows that use the Requested Item [sc_req_item] table, the stage field is automatically set to the Stage field of the table and cannot be changed. The stage state displayed for a workflow running on the Requested Item table is based on the state of the workflow activities.

• If an activity is active, then the stage is shown with the state of In progress.
• If an activity is in the Pending or Completed state, the stage reflects this state.
• If an activity is canceled, Request Cancelled appears in the Stage field. The "Cancelled" label set in the wf_stage table is a reserved word, and does not display in the Stage field.

How stage values are derived

Stage values are derived from various sources in the interface.

Note:

An updated method for managing workflow stages as a set is also available. For information about grouping and reusing stages, see Workflow stage sets.

Stage values are derived from the following sources:

• Choices for Stage column: Choices defined for the column selected as the Stage column for the workflow.
• Default stages for table: Stages defined in the Stage Default [wf_stage_default] table for the table selected.
• Workflow-specific stages: Applied only to the workflow for which they were defined in the Workflow Stage [wf_stage] table.
• Stage values in existing records: Values from the designated Stage column in the table assigned to the workflow are inherited from existing records.

If the stage field for a workflow is the table column named Stage, then the progress of the workflow appears in any list view containing the Stage column.

Figure 2. Stages in a list

Stage values shown in the list views are accompanied by the state, based on the workflow activities being executed. If an activity has a stage specified for it, and the activity is currently active in the workflow, then the stage is shown with a state of In progress. Similarly, if the activity is in the Pending or Completed state, the stage reflects this state.

Example

If the workflow table is Request Item [sc_req_item], then the stage field is automatically set to the Stage column of that table and cannot be changed. The following stage values for the request item are displayed in a choice list from the Dictionary Entry [sys_dictionary] table:

• Waiting for Approval
• Fulfillment
• Delivery

In addition, the Request Item table has the following default stages:

• Request Cancelled
• Completed

Note:

If an activity is cancelled, Request Cancelled appears in the Stage field. The "Cancelled" label set in the wf_stage table is a reserved word, and does not display in the Stage field.

When you edit available activity stages in the Workflow Editor, the list displays the following stage values:

• Waiting for Approval
• Fulfillment
• Delivery
• Request Cancelled
• Completed

The following diagram depicts the process used to gather stage values from the Request Item table to populate the Stages list in workflow activities.

Note:

If you are creating a workflow with a table other than Request Item [sc_req_item], you must select a Stage field in the workflow properties for the workflow to have stages.

• Use workflow stages
  You can add or modify workflow stages.
• Add and translate stages
  You can add default stages to use for a table, and stages to existing workflow
• Workflow stage sets
  Stage sets are named groups of workflow stages commonly used together. Create a stage set and assign it as a default set to any number of tables. You can import the choice list values of a workflow field as stages for a workflow, and export a stage set to create a new one.
• Create a workflow stage field
  Workflows can provide a summary of workflow progress by updating any field of the Workflow type. If the field is a workflow field, it displays an icon to indicate the workflow stage progress.
• Workflow fields with deleted records
  Workflow fields may indicate when a record required by the workflow is deleted.