Using Workflows & Workflow Approvals

Overview

Workflow is a powerful feature that helps you plan and track the work needed to stay in compliance with organizational or regulatory process standards, while helping workers stay focused on the priorities that need their attention soonest. A workflow is a repeatable series of steps that define a business process; workflows are composed of steps, and each step contains one or more tasks that represent the actual work to be done.

Benefits

Workflows help staff decide what work to prioritize first and stay organized and on top of their responsibilities.
Workflows define organizational expectations for the steps to complete in a process.
Workflows show staff the expected timeframe for completing a process and provide notifications about upcoming deadlines.
Workflows help steps stay in compliance with approval requirements by automatically kicking off approval cycles on applicable workflow steps.

Before You Begin

Before using a workflow, a few points of guidance.

Read the introductory article on Workflows & Tasks to make sure you grasp essential concepts.
Read the article on Using & Managing Tasks to make sure you understand other pertinent details about tasks.
If you’re in leadership or an administrator, learn more about how workflows are created in this article.

Activating a Workflow

Assuming a workflow is made “active” in the Administrator module, workflows can automatically trigger based on their trigger event. Some workflows may not be configured to have a triggering event. In both cases, any user with access to a given intake report, case, or provider record can simply add an applicable workflow manually too. To manually add a workflow:

Navigate to an intake report, case, or provider record
Select the plus icon towards the right-hand side of the Workflows section.
Select the workflow you want to begin.
Users will then be brought to the workflow where they can: complete assigned tasks, add additional tasks to a workflow step, submit a step once it’s ready to be marked completed, or end a workflow.

Completing Workflow-driven Tasks in the Workflow Viewer

The article on Using & Managing Tasks in Casebook describes almost everything you need to know about interacting with tasks that have been assigned to you via workflow and covers how to use the Tasks table in the Tasks section of a record to do your task-related work (remember: the Tasks table shows both workflow-driven and ad hoc tasks). Tasks can also be completed via the Workflow Viewer. To view and complete a workflow’s steps and tasks on your record:

Navigate to the record’s Workflows section.
Find the workflow you wish to open and click its name.
You will be brought to the active, current step of the workflow

Completed and future steps and their tasks may also be viewed by clicking their names in the left-hand menu

Find the active tasks and use the available options to complete a task (some tasks may take you to a different screen to complete a form or upload an attachment).
Use the “Skip Task button”, if needed

You will be required to enter a comment/reason for skipping the task.

Using “End Workflow” vs. Completing Steps on a Workflow

To understand more about the “End Workflow” concept vs. completing a workflow, definitely review the introductory article on workflows and tasks. Using “End Workflow,” which is accessible on the right-hand navigation bar when in the Workflow Viewer for a given workflow instance, finishes a workflow with an “unsuccessful outcome,” but it will close any current or future workflow tasks for that workflow.

Submitting the final step of a workflow will also end a workflow, but with a “successful outcome.” Some steps, including final steps, may be configured to go through a reviewer process. If this is the case and all reviewer(s) approve the submitted step, the step will complete successfully (or the overall workflow if it is the final step). If the step is rejected by any of the reviewers, it will be returned to the step assignee for revision and eventual step re-submission and re-review.

Finally, if the step is not a final step and not configured for any reviews, submitting the step will simply move the workflow to the next step. When this happens, incomplete tasks will be marked as skipped and will no longer be editable. You may not submit a step with incomplete required tasks. You must first either complete such tasks or intentionally skip them and provide a comment accordingly.

Using Workflow Step Approvals

When a workflow enters a review stage, the workflow displays a Review section beneath the workflow tasks in the Workflow Viewer.

The home page also shows workflow steps requiring approval as well. You can refer to this article to learn more about what you can do with tasks/reviews on your home page. Depending on how the reviewer was configured, reviewers may receive:

A Home Dashboard approval item
An in-app notification
An email notification (for Team and Supervisor reviewers)

Only the reviewer currently responsible for the approval is notified, helping reduce unnecessary notifications.

Where to View Step Approval Requests

At the bottom of a step, you can view the review section for a step if one is configured. The Review section shows:

Each reviewer in the approval sequence
Current review status
Who completed the review
Review date

As approvals are completed, the workflow updates automatically so everyone involved can easily track progress.

Approve or Reject a Workflow Step

If you have been assigned to review a step:

Open the workflow instance.
Review the completed tasks and supporting information.
Select either:

Approve Step
Reject Step

If the step is approved, the workflow moves to the next reviewer or advances to the next workflow step if all approvals have been completed. If this was the final step, the workflow will shift to a completed status with a “successful outcome.” If the step is rejected, the workflow returns to the assigned worker so corrections can be made. After updates are complete, the workflow step can be submitted for review again.

Editing a Specific Workflow Instance

Finalizing the Assignment of a Task

Some task assignments need to be finalized by the step assignee or person generally using the workflow. This occurs when the workflow set up by your Administrator has task assignment logic assigning that task to options like: one or more case/intake people or even all case/intake people. To finalize a task assignment:

Navigate to the relevant intake report, case or provider record
Go to the Workflows section
Click the name of the workflow to open the Workflow Viewer
In the step requiring additional set-up, find the tasks that require additional review
Select the appropriate assignee(s) for the task and save your changes

Step Reassignments & Deadline Changes

Workflows are mostly configured by an administrator as described in this article. Users who use the actual workflows still have a few things they may configure on a workflow active on their intake report, case, or provider record. For a given step, they can reassign the assignee of that step to a different user. They can also update the deadline of that step. Furthermore, if a workflow is configured to have a step dynamically choose an assignee based on a field like “Primary Case Assignee,” a workflow step will automatically reassign itself if that underlying field changes. In other words, when ownership changes, any active or pending workflow steps will automatically move to the new assignee so the work continues to follow the person responsible for the record. However, this behavior changes if the step is manually reassigned, as Casebook automation logic will not override manual reassignments. So, if a user changes the assignee on a workflow step to a specific person, the step is no longer linked to the original assignment setup for the workflow template. After a manual reassignment is performed, the step will not update automatically.

Example: A workflow step was created to assign a step to a Primary Case Assignee. The workflow activates on a case. A user reassigns a step to a different user. The Primary Case Assignee for the case changes. The workflow step does not automatically reassign to the new Primary Case Assignee because someone had previously manually reassigned that step to a different user. If that manual reassignment was never done, then the workflow step WOULD be auto-reassigned to that new Primary Case Assignee.

This allows teams to override the automatic behavior when a specific person needs to remain responsible for that step. Workflow tasks are not reassignable at this time (either via automatic changes or manual changes).

Adding Tasks

Once a workflow is active, some users may have a need to track more tasks outside of the tasks defined for that workflow, but still affiliated with that workflow. Certainly, these can be created as ad hoc tasks; however, when a user wants that task to be linked to an ongoing workflow, different steps apply:

Navigate to the record’s Workflows section.
Find the workflow you wish to edit and click its name.
Navigate to the active (tasks created this way can only be created on active steps) step you wish to edit by clicking the name in the left-hand menu.
Find the “Add task” button and create the task accordingly.

The task parameters available to you are more limited, but such tasks will appear on your step if the workflow view is your primary method for handling workflow tasks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to complete all the parts of a workflow? What happens if there is one I cannot complete?

Currently, required tasks within a step must be completed in order to move forward to the next step. You can also skip required steps, but they require a comment so you can explain why the required task was skipped.

Can I reopen a submitted or approved step?

No, once a step has closed, it can no longer be revisited in that instance of that workflow. Naturally, if the same workflow activates again for a given intake report, case or provider record, that same step will be available again for that iteration of the workflow.

Will I be notified when a step is due?

Users who are assigned workflows or assigned steps within workflows will receive these types of notifications:

A workflow has been assigned to you
You received feedback on a workflow step
Workflow step is overdue

Notifications about workflow comments will be emailed only. All other notifications will show up in Casebook and be sent through email.

What happens to all the information that I upload or submit as part of the workflow?

Right now, all the materials are accessible in the workflow. When a user clicks into a completed workflow, a user sees all the materials submitted during the workflow and confirmation of all completed tasks. In the future, the files will be in the lists of attachments and forms on the parent record.

My supervisor and I negotiate timelines for completing my work together. Can I change deadlines in the workflow?

Yes, the assignee and the deadline within each step can be edited.

Is there data available on how long it’s actually taking my team to complete these processes (workflow)?

Please refer to the work management pre-built dashboards for out-of-the-box reporting using workflow and task data.

How are workflows triggered?

Workflows can be triggered based on values in certain fields on an Intake, Case, or Provider record. Otherwise, all workflows can be triggered manually. Click the + in the right corner of the workflows table and select a workflow from the list.

I can’t trigger the workflow I want. It doesn’t show up in the list.

There are two possible reasons the workflow you’re looking to trigger doesn’t show up in the list. First, it might not be active. Your administrator can double-check if it's active by going to Admin > Intake/Engage/Providers > Workflows. If it's inactive, they can click on the workflow and select the Activate button.

The second reason is that you already have the same workflow open on that record. You can click through to older workflows to see if an open one with the same name is in process. We do this to make sure people don’t inadvertently create duplicates.

Can I delete a workflow from a record?

Yes. Select the three ellipses icon to the right of the workflow and select Delete.

What happens when I change the assignee on a task?

When you update the Assignee on a task, the task is automatically reassigned to the new person you selected.

If the Primary Assignee changes, will the workflow steps and tasks also change?

Yes, workflow steps and tasks will update automatically when the Primary Assignee (or Assignee for Intake) changes, as long as the step/task is assigned to the Primary Case Assignee. When ownership changes, any active or pending workflow steps will automatically move to the new assignee so the work continues to follow the person responsible for the record. However, this behavior changes if the step is manually reassigned, as Casebook automation logic will not override manual reassignments. So, if a user changes the assignee on a workflow step to a specific person, the step is no longer linked to the original assignment setup for the workflow template. After a manual reassignment is performed, the step will not update automatically.

Example: A workflow step was created to assign a step to a Primary Case Assignee. The workflow activates on a case. A user reassigns a step to a different user. The Primary Case Assignee for the case changes. The workflow step does not automatically reassign to the new Primary Case Assignee because someone had previously manually reassigned that step to a different user. If that manual reassignment was never done, then the workflow step WOULD be auto-reassigned to that new Primary Case Assignee.

This allows teams to override the automatic behavior when a specific person needs to remain responsible for that step.