WebSite Director (WSD) allows you to match your existing or proposed policies and procedures by providing a large range of options for creating and customizing your WSD workflow. When you set up your workflow, you will be working with Groups, Stages, and Approval Classes in a specific order (see Steps in Workflow Setup at the end of this document.

These elements are defined as follows:

Groups -   Groups of users sharing a common purpose (for example, a company policy committee or Legal Department), are created via the Maintain Groups function. A Group can be as small as a single individual, or as large as the entire WSD user community. Groups may be given permission to approve requests within one or more Group Approval stages and/or used to limit editing of specific content fields within a Page Layout Template. When Group Approvals are required or content fields are edit, any member of the group can approve or edit on behalf of the entire group. Users are assigned to groups on the User Permissions screen. 

Stages -  Each step of the WSD workflow is controlled by a Workflow Approval Stage. When WSD is first installed, there is one assigned Stage (Step) - Initial Entry. Each additional stage must be created using the Add New Stage screen, and assigned to an approval Type -- Author, Group or Individual. The approval type determines who can, must, or may need to review and approve requests in that stage. The following describes each Type of stage: 

• Author  -  Only the Author defined on the Properties screen, who must also be authorized to update requests in the specific Author Stage (as defined on a User Permissions screen), can edit and/or approve a request in that Author stage. Other WSD users can be given permission to view and add comments to requests in an Author Stage, depending on a policy set on the System Policies screen, permissions set on the User Permissions screen. 
• Group   -  One or more approval groups assigned to the stage using the Add New Group screen may be able to approve requests within Approval Classes assigned via the Maintain Approval Classes screen.   
• Individual  -  Defines a stage wherein any user with permissions to edit and/or approve requests can access any request assigned to that stage.   

Approval Classes - Approval Classes define a series of specific steps that a content management request will follow from the time it is submitted into the workflow process until it is approved and published to your public web site or staging server. Each step references a workflow stage or, for Group Stages, one or more associated groups. WSD users will, based on their individual user permissions, be required to edit and/or approve each request. Approving a request moves that request through the Approval Class towards publication. Disapproving a request moves it backwards in the workflow process towards the request's originator or into the WSD Trash Bin.   For example, you may want your press releases to be submitted into a "Content Authoring" stage, then moved to the Editing stage, a Review stage and finally an Approval/Publishing stage. See Planning Workflow and Create Approval Classes.

When you first install WSD, you are provided with one Default Approval Class named Default, and one workflow stage named Initial Entry.  

You can create and edit Approval Classes for your site on the Maintain Approval Classes screen. For a list of information required, see Create Approval Classes. 

After an Approval Class is created, it may be assigned to one or more subdirectories via the Maintain Web Site screen or to individual users (see User Permissions). Users may change the approval path for a specific request on the request's Properties screen.

How Approval Classes are Selected by WSD

When a request is submitted to add new content, WSD uses the following rules to determine which Approval Class will be used.

1. If the Submitter has an Approval Class assigned (see User Permissions), WSD will assign that approval class to the new request.
2. If the Submitter has not been assigned an Approval Class, and the subdirectory for the new content has an assigned Approval Class (see Directory Properties for the subdirectory), the Approval Class assigned to the directory will be used.
3. If neither the Submitter nor the subdirectory have an assigned Approval Class, WSD will use the Approval Class selected on the System Configuration screen as the system default.

How Approvals Work with a Selected Approval Class

When users approve content, the approval screen contains a drop-down list used to select the next stage into which the request will be placed when approved. This list may contain more than one approval stage name. The list of additional stages, when present, is determined by the user's Permissions in conjunction with the Required list of Approvals Needed. When more than one stage is listed, the approval list will contain all workflow stages and groups within Group stage listed under Approvals Needed, up to one of the following conditions:

• The next workflow stage in the list when the user does not have approval permissions for that workflow stage.
• All workflow stages in the Approvals Needed list for which the user does not have approval permission. Note: If any workflow stage following the current stage is a group stage, it will terminate the list unless the user is a member of all groups required to approve the content in that stage.
• The list will terminate with the publishing stage if the user has approval permissions for all stages and is a member of all groups in all Group stages that are part of the Approvals Needed list.

Note: The same rules apply to the "Submitting to" list on the Submit New Request screen when the user submits a new request. . 

See Maintain Approval Classes for more information

If you wish to assign a specific workflow path to an existing request, you may use the Modify Approvals Needed option on the Properties screen while Editing that request. Permission to use the Modify Approvals Needed option may be granted to individual users on the User Permissions screen.

Once a request is submitted for specific content, WSD prevents others from initiating a duplicate request for that content until the previously created request in process has been published. 

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