1. AXUG Chapter - Richmond, VA February 24, 2017
AX2012 Workflow overview
AXUG Chapter - Richmond, VA
February 24, 2017
@AXUG

2. Introductions Scott Martin Senior Application Consultant
McaConnect - AX Managed Services

3. AX 2012 – Workflow Agenda Workflow Definition and Concepts
Requirements and Setup
Components of Workflow
Workflow Example
Workflow troubleshooting
Tips and best practices

4. Workflow – what is it?

5. AX 2012 Workflow Definition
Workflow is a movement of documents or tasks through a work process
Represents a “structured business process” showing a document flow through the system by completing tasks, decisions or approvals
Examples:
Purchase order approval
Expense report approval
Basically, AX allows you to execute a program within AX that will accomplish “something” – decision or approval. Idea is to remove some offline systems, less paper, make things easier, faster or comply with policies for your organization.

6. AX 2012 Workflows – location
Located in the setup section of specific modules
AP, AR, Budgeting, Fixed Assets, GL, HR, organization admin, procurement, projects, travel and expense, and system admin
Regardless of the area of AX, You will need to have your AX user setup with the correct access to use and modify the workflows via SETUP, so keep that in mind.

7. AX 2012 Workflows
Depending on AX module you are in, the available workflows to create will change. Available workflows in Procurement Around 60 workflows available in AX 2012 R3

8. AX 2012 Workflow - Concepts Elements Participants Actions Tasks
Approval process
Flow control
Participants
Owner, originator, decision-maker, approver, delegate
Actions
Submit, complete, reject, request changes, reassign, and approve
Elements – what makes up the workflow
Participants – people/roles involved
Actions – what we can do in the workflow
Questions before we get started?

9. Workflow setup and Requirements

10. AX 2012 workflow requirements
Number sequences are setup in System Administration!
PATH: System administration – setup – system parameters – number sequences
First thing, make sure the number sequences are setup. Not normally where you setup number sequences – organization admin

11. AX 2012 workflow requirements
Batch jobs/groups – workflow message processing job
Setup batch groups
Assign AOS server to group
Create batch job
Workflow requires a batch job called workflow message processing – needs to be setup and run and an internal that makes sense – 1 min, 15 min, 30 mins etc.

12. AX 2012 workflow requirements
Use workflow configuration wizard to setup batch job
System administration > Setup > Workflow > Workflow infrastructure configuration.
If you have not setup batch jobs before, fear not, there is a wizard in system – admin, that will walk you through the process. Keep that in mind, however, most system admins can set this up manually if using other batch jobs for MRP etc.

13. AX 2012 workflow requirements
User setup – needs proper roles in AX security
Needs worker relation setup in AX user – meaning must be setup in HR as an employee, worker or contractor, then in system administration
Very important! This is typically the most important and most missed setup for workflow. So the AX user needs the correct security but must also be setup with HR and have the “worker relation” setup. Once this is done and workflow is active, you get what is on the next slide….

14. AX 2012 workflow requirements
Yellow bar of workflow
If you have it, users are setup correctly
Many users, setup a workflow, its active, no errors, but cant get a user to start the workflow. They need to have the yellow bar. Typically if it is missing, it is because of the user setup from the previous slide.

15. AX 2012 workflow requirements
User setup – update user notification options in settings
Default is 15 minutes, recommend switch to 1
While not a requirement exactly, its is a good idea to change the users notification options from 15 minutes to 1 minute for AX system messages. Otherwise, you may not get a timely notification of a message to do something in workflow.

16. Components of workflow

17. AX 2012 Workflow - Overview Import/Export and have version control
Set status – active or not
View, edit and delete
Specify default settings
Troubleshooting info
Workflow ID and active version info. Version 1.0 vs 1.2 Workflow updates version as you save/make changes.
So from the Setup – workflow screen, we enter this overview screen where you can do the following:

18. AX 2012 workflow components
“Editor” allows for modification of workflow using “elements”
Drag and drop functionality
From the overview screen, we can either create a new workflow or edit and existing one. Either way you will come to this screen called the editor where you can drag and drop the different elements on the left hand side. You can also use the properties button to make changes to those elements.

19. AX 2012 workflow components - Elements
Task - unit of work that must be performed.
Manual – performed by user – i.e. “review receipts”
Automatic – performed by system, i.e. “credit check”
So speaking of elements, we are going to run through a few of the most common. The first one is a TASK – shown by the icon with the red checkmark. So what do tasks do?
Pretty straightforward.

20. AX 2012 workflow components - Elements
Approvals
review process that ends with an approval. Can have multiple levels of approval
more robust than tasks
The second is an Approval shown with the green check mark. These are similar to tasks but offer more functionality. Can offer multiple levels of approval and more options.

21. Differences in Approvals and Tasks
Workflow
Approval
Tasks
Can be assigned to multiple people
Yes
Only one person may complete No
Multiple people may complete
Multiple completion outcomes
Multiple steps
So, what exactly is the difference between tasks and approvals, well see the chart here. One isn’t necessarily better, but just offer a different way of doing things.

22. AX 2012 workflow components - Elements
Flow controls
Conditional – system decision
Manual – user decision
Parallel – creates 2 branches that run at same time
Subworkflow – calls another workflow
Flow controls – used to create branches in your workflow. Parallel is good if two activities need to take place at the same time.
Example of subworkflow would be the vendor invoice, calls the vendor line invoice to check specific entries at the line level.

23. AX 2012 workflow components - Actions
Workflow actions available
Approve – moves to next step/user in the workflow
Reject – workflow process rejected, can be sent back to originator
Delegate – assigned to another user for approval
Request change – sends document back to originator for edits
Actions allow things to advance or not, through workflow. Completely customizable, choose your actions as needed.

24. AX 2012 Workflow components - Extras
Notifications
s or AX system alert notifications
When and what events – started, stopped, completed, terminated, approved, rejected etc.
Specify user/role for workflow assignment
Participant – Role-based user groups
Hierarchy – organization setup
Users – originator or specific users
This next section is what I call extras in workflow. So regarding notifications, you can choose, when and what type of events trigger notificaitons. May want to limit, so users aren’t getting overloaded.
Specify assignment – specific users, roles, or hierarchy

25. AX 2012 Workflow components – Extras cont.
Time Limits to complete workflow
Days, hours , weeks, etc.
Base off a specific AX calendar
Completion policies
Single or multiple approvals
Conditions
Always do this or only when…
Escalation
After a certain time do this…
Here are extras con’t. So as you can see workflow is very customizable and offers a lot of functionality.

26. AX 2012 Workflow – tutorial processor
Need AOT access, form called tutorial_WorkflowProcessor
right click open and start
processes workflow without batch jobs – great for testing
Consumes system resources – can slow down system. Stop when done
Last thing I want to touch on is the tutorial WF processor form in the AOT. Now if you have never been in the AOT, or do not have access, I don’t recommend trying this, atleast not in PROD. But the idea behind this is use this form instead of having batch jobs/servers setup and running on your TEST environments. When you start it, it simply starts processing any workflow requests. Then you stop it when finished. It does slow your system down so make sure you do shut it down.

27. Workflow Example – purchase order approval

28. AX 2012 Workflow example Review Purchase orders
Invoice total is under $1000 – automatic approval
Invoice total is equal to or greater than $1000 – route to Scott for approval
Here are extras con’t. So as you can see workflow is very customizable and offers a lot of functionality.

29. Workflow Troubleshooting

30. AX 2012 Workflow – Troubleshooting
Yellow bar – actions – view history
View history
Tracking details
Reassign or check details
Regarding troubleshooting, after workflow is completed, from the PO we can view the history and details of the workflow items. See steps and how they were evaluated, and tell who did the approvals etc. If it is stuck with someone you can also reassign the workflow if needed.

31. AX 2012 Workflow – Troubleshooting cont.
View ALL workflow history
PATH: Home – inquires – workflow history
Filter by status – all, completed, pending, stopped, cancelled, etc.
Shows all workflows, filter on ID or version
Can recall or resume workflows
Another great way to check on all workflows is to use workflow history from the home – inquires screen. This gives you a status of ALL workflows and can allow for cleanup or review.

32. AX 2012 workflow – troubleshooting con’t.
TEST– used to verify your conditions when designing approvals
Last thing, during setup on approval screens in AOT editor, many people forget about the TEST functionality. So when you have selected conditions, make sure you use the TEST functionality to see if you have the correct condition setup. It allows you to test using real data and gives you a result – positive or negative to let you know how it will resolve. Saves you time running through the workflow to get results.

33. AX 2012 Workflow - Tips and Best Practices
Use cautiously! Don’t “over-workflow” and create inefficiencies
Start slow. Use an updated TEST environment and the AOT tutorial processor form
Test early and often as you design. Too many elaborate changes – hard to find errors. Use “test” function when creating conditions
Use view history or workflow history (Home menu) to check on status, errors and issues
Regularly export and backup your workflow – make sure you can import without issues

34. Further resources List of AX 2012 workflows
Workflow overview and roadmap

35. Q & A

36. Thank You! Scott.martin@mcaConnect.com
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