Configuring Workflow on your Matter Types

Overview

One of the most amazing and unique features of Actionstep is the ability to be able to take your work process and build it into your system. We do this by allowing you to break your processes down into different steps, place those steps in the order you want and then have those steps trigger automation.

In this article, we will review the process of creating steps and organizing them in a workflow in Actionstep. This function is only available to users on our Practice Pro or Practice Pro + Accounting plans, talk to our support or sales team if you want to upgrade.

This is a long article. If you want to move directly onto a particular part, use the links below:

• Accessing the Workflow Screen of your Matter Type
• Understanding the Workflow Screen
• Creating Steps
• Ordering Steps on the Workflow Diagram
• Adding a step to another step
• Understanding the Create /Edit workflow step
• A video example of creating a simple workflow

Actionstep also allows you to choose what will happen when a matter is moved to a particular step. See Steps for more details on that.

Accessing the Workflow Screen of your Matter Type

Both the creation of new steps and the ordering of those steps is done on the Workflow screen found under individual matter types. To get there go to your Admin screen, click on Matter Types and then clicking on the matter type you want to configure. Lastly, click on the 'Manage' button beside Workflow.

Admin > Matter Types > (select the matter type) > Workflow.

Understanding the Workflow Screen

The workflow screen is divided into two parts. To the left is the Workflow Diagram, the section where you will place your set the order that your steps will appear in your matter.

To the right of the screen is a list of all the steps on the matter type and the option to create new steps. 

Tip:

TIP

While we are big proponents of trying-as-you-go, we do find that our users build better workflows when they consider what they are wanting to achieve before the leap in.

By all means, have a try and get used to the functionality on this screen but many of our users like to map out the process on a notepad or whiteboard first, then start to build it into Actionstep.

Before you start working out the order of your steps in the Workflow diagram, let's cover how you create new steps first.

Creating Steps

To create a new step, click on the green 'Create new step' button  to the right-hand side of the screen. 

You will be presented with the screen below. 

If you want to just create a step and return to the Workflow screen, just enter a Step name of the step and then click Save.

Create multiple steps

If you know you want to create more than one step at once, you can speed up the process by using the Create multiple steps switch.

Turing this on will change the Step name box so that you can enter multiple lines. For each line you enter into this box, Actionstep will create a separate step. Just hit enter to drop to a new line.

 

Information:

EXAMPLE

In the screenshot below, three new steps will be created. Each called "Client Inquiry", "Engagement" and "Pre-Trial" respectively.

 

Creating a step and editing what will happen on that step

Sometimes you will want to create a new step and then set what automation will happen on that step. You can do this as you create the new step by putting a tick in the Edit more settings after creating step tick box before you click Save.

This will create the step and then take you to the Edit Workflow Step screen. 

NOTE

For more information about the automation, you can set on a step see Steps.

 

Ordering Steps on the Workflow Diagram

The order that steps appear in on your matter is set on the Workflow Diagram, the left-hand part of the Workflow screen.

Understanding the first step in your Workflow Diagram

Even if you are creating a brand new matter type, there will always be one step showing on the Workflow diagram. This will appear in the top left and is by default called the "Start" step. It is from this step that you will build all other steps from.

NOTE

The first step in any workflow diagram sets what will happen when a matter is opened for the first time.

If you do not want your opening or first step to be called "Start", you can rename it by clicking on it in the Steps section to the right of the Workflow screen.

 

Adding a step to another step

You build your workflow diagram by adding steps to existing steps. By adding a step to an existing step you are effectively setting what step a user can move a matter of this type to when they are on the existing step.

 

Information:

EXAMPLE:

Warren has mapped out his process and after opening a matter, he wants the next step in the process to be called "Client Engagement". He has created a step called "Client Engagement" and now he wants to place it after the "Start" step.

In this example, the "Start" step is the existing step and the "Client Engagement" is the new step.

 

There are two ways to add a new step to an existing step.

 

Using the +Add step to workflow tree button

When you click on click on the blue button, you will open the 'Create workflow step' screen. On that screen, you will want to select the step that you want to add to the workflow (the new step) from the Workflow step dropdown.

Choose where in the existing Workflow diagram you want the step to appear by choosing the existing step from the Workflow path dropdown. 

Clicking on the existing step you want to add a new step to

The other way that you can add a step to your workflow diagram is to click onto the existing step that is already in your workflow diagram to open the 'Edit workflow step' screen. There you can change a number of options about the step, including what step will follow on from it.

As the 'Edit workflow step' screen gives you more details and options, it is likely you will use this method more as you get used to building workflows.

 

Understanding the Create /Edit workflow step

Any changes you want to make to your workflow can be done by clicking on an existing step in the workflow diagram and then making changes to the 'Edit workflow step' screen that appears.

To be able to understand the options available on this screen we will have to explain a few concepts associated with each part below. We will do that by breaking the screen down into its four possible sections below.

Settings on the Edit workflow step 

Under the setting sections, you give some basic for where this step appears in the workflow in relation to other steps and you switch on the remaining sections in the screen.

Workflow Step	Select the step which you would like to insert into the workflow. If you are clicking on an existing step, this may be greyed out as you cannot change what step it is. You can still move the step to a new place or delete the step from the workflow diagram.
Weight	An optional field which defines the weighting for the display order of a step when there is more than one next step available. Higher weight appears first (ie descending order).   Information: EXAMPLE Julie has a step in her workflow called "Pending Verdict" and from it, she has two possible future steps to move to:  Guilty Not Guilty Julie wants "Not Gulity" to appear before "Guilty" when she looks at her matters but at first, they show in the wrong order. However, using weighting, Julie can control the order of the items. She gives "Not Guilty" a weight value of "20" and she gives "Guilty" a weight value of "10". As the weight value of "Not Guilty" is more than the weight value of "Guilty" it now appears first.
Enabled	By default, you would want your step in the workflow to be enabled. When disabled, users will not be able to navigate to this path, however, existing matters already on this path will be allowed to continue.
Next Steps	By switching this on, you will see the Next steps section on the Edit workflow step screen.
Jump Step	By switching this on, you will see the Jump steps section on the Edit workflow step screen.
Alt Steps	By switching this on, you will see the Alterative steps section on the Edit workflow step screen.
Workflow path	This field chooses where in your workflow, this step will be located.  You can use this field to move the current step to a new location on your workflow. Note that when you do, you won't just be moving this step but any next steps (and their next steps) to the location. Effectively the whole branch will be moved.

Next Steps

In this section, you choose which steps will happen after this one. So when a matter is on this step in the workflow diagram, the steps you put under the Next steps section (and the Jump step section) will be the steps that a user can move the matter to next.

The difference between the Next Steps and Jump Steps section is that Next Steps allow you to add a new step to your workflow diagram for where you want the workflow to go next. Jump steps allow you to jump to a step that is already in your workflow diagram.

Before you can create a next step make sure the 'Next steps' section is switched on at the top of the Edit worfklow step screen.

To add a next step, click the Add row button. In the new line, select the step you want to add and give it a weight from the box to the right. 

Weight will dictate the order of the steps if there is more than one next step. Give the weight a number. When the weight of a step is higher than the weight of another step, it will appear before it.

Weight of any steps in the 'Next steps' section will be compared to weights of steps in the 'Jump steps' section as well. 

Tip:

TIP

When entering weights, always use multiples of tens or hundreds.

For example, make the first step '30', the second '20', the third '10'.

By doing this, it makes it easier to place a new step in between two existing steps if you want to do that at a later date.

 

Jump Steps

Jump steps allow a user who has a matter of this type open, on the step in your workflow that you currently are editing jump to another step that is in your workflow. 

Jump steps are useful as they keep the number of step in your workflow down but still allow your users to move to the appropriate place in the workflow.

 

Information:

EXAMPLE

So far Mary has three steps she wants in her workflow: 'Start', 'Conflict Check' and 'Engagement'.

Mary wants her workflow to go from 'Start' to 'Conflict Check' to 'Engagement' for almost all matters she opens. However, she knows that sometimes, she opens a matter for an existing client so she wants to skip from 'Start' to 'Engagement'.

To achieve this, Mary will create the three steps in her workflow in the desired order, then add a jump step from the 'Start' step to the 'Engagement' step.

Now a user can go from 'Start' to either 'Conflict Check' or directly to 'Engagement'.

 

Before you can create a jump step make sure the 'Jump steps' section is switched on at the top of the Edit worfklow step screen.

To add a jump step, click the Add row button. In the new line, select the step you want to add and give it a weight from the box to the right. 

Weight will dictate the order of the steps if there is more than one jump step or next step. Give the weight a number. When the weight of a step is higher than the weight of another step, it will appear before it.

Alternative Steps

Alternative steps are used where you want to to give the user a choice of two or more steps to follow from the first step and regardless of which of those steps the user chooses, the step after that will be the same. 

 

Information:

EXAMPLE

In the diagram below, the user can move from 'Step 1' to either 'Step 2', 'Alt Step 1' or 'Alt Step 2'. 

Regardless of which of those they move to, the user will only be able to move to 'Step 3'.

In essence, using alternative steps means that however a user gets to the point of the step and its alternative steps they will have the same options to go to after that step or its alternative steps.

 

To add an Alternative step, click the Add row button. In the new line, select the step you want to add and give it a weight from the box to the right. 

Weight will dictate the order of the steps if there is more than one jump step or next step. Give the weight a number. When the weight of a step is higher than the weight of another step, it will appear before it.

When you add an alternative step to a step you are creating the alternatives. To use the above diagram, you would open 'Step 2' to add 'Alt Step 1' and 'Alt Step 2' to it.

Comparing the above diagram to the screenshot below, you can see how to set up your step (below) to achieve the result (above).

 

EXAMPLE

Have a watch of this video in which Duncan, one of our Product Managers, takes you through how to build a simple workflow diagram.