Workflows part 3

Introduction – 00:00

Howdy, howdy, howdy! Welcome to part three of our look at the new Workflows Module in Freezerworks 2017.

Processing Workflows – 00:19

Once workflows have been configured and assigned to your group, they will be available to process.  Depending on the type of workflow you want to process the steps to doing so may differ. For example, a Process Shipment Workflow can only be run from within a shipping file form. In this video we will be processing the workflow we configured in part two from the inventory list view, but you can run Check Out Workflows from within samples and explore freezers as well.

First, we'll locate the aliquot that we want to process a Check Out Workflow on using the inventory list view.  Now here you can use any of the search options available in Freezerworks to find the aliquots that you need.  We'll highlight the desired aliquots and click “Process Workflow” – “Check Out”.  A list of Check Out Workflow Templates that your group has been assigned will appear.  Highlight the one you want to process and click continue.  When the Process Workflows screen appears, there are two things you need to pay attention to first: 

1. What pages are available on the left which indicates what tasks you are expected to perform before processing and…
2. Where the red asterisks are on the screen. These indicate the tasks that are absolutely required before you can process the workflow.

Update Fields – 01:45

The Update Fields page opens first.  Fields in the left box are modifiable, while the ones on the right will be automatically updated based on the configuration of the workflow.  The items highlighted in red, like Aliquot Date, require entry before you can continue.  Double-click the fields to open their update forms or highlight them and click Modify Value.  And we have got to update it, let’s do Current Date.  When all required fields have been updated, the red asterisk on the page button turns into a green checkmark, like so. There may still be fields that do not require entry, but you can modify them nonetheless.  These are left in black.  Double-click it to open and modify them in the same fashion. 

Create Transaction – 02:40

Moving right along, our Create Transaction page has a red asterisk because Transaction Notes are required before you can process the workflow. You've got to enter some notes.  Let's go with “this is for training purposes”, and when I click out of the box the red asterisk will turn into a green checkmark like before.  Let's enter an activity of Check Out as well.

Create Shipping Box – 03:15

Now the next five tasks do not require action before we can process the workflow but their appearance justifies your attention, as the user who configured this workflow left them modifiable for a reason.  For instance, on the Create Shipping Box page, our template has Create Shipping Box for Printing checked on and the shipping box Workflow 1 has already been selected during configuration. If the user who configured this workflow wanted Workflow 1 to be used no matter what with this exact configuration then they probably wouldn't have left this task modifiable during processing.  Therefore, we can select a different shipping box from the list of boxes provided.  Seeing as how there's only one other selection, let's just highlight it.  Notice the Selected Box Format Name info on the right updates to reflect this new selection, instead of Workflow 1 we have workflow 2.

Select Exports/Reports – 04:05

Moving on to Select Exports/Reports you'll notice that I cannot change any of the selections in the export list as it has not been left modifiable during processing, but I am allowed to modify the reports selections.  When we process the workflow we will see these selections in action. 

Print Labels – 04:30

Now even though the print labels page has been mostly filled out for us, we are allowed to modify the label format used and the number of labels per aliquot.  We'll also need to select a printer to send the labels to.  This drop-down is always modifiable as your printer can change quite often.

Set Freezer Position - 04:50

We'll discuss the set Freezer Position page in much greater detail in our next video of this series, as some of the selections work in tandem with Check In Workflows, and we just don't have enough time in this video to go through that.  For now, we'll leave the selection of Keep the Complete Freezer Position.

Create Email – 05:10

If the user who created this template wants processing users to be able to add, edit, and remove emails from the workflow then this page will appear.  Double click an email template to modify it, or we can use the add, remove, and duplicate buttons to refine what emails will be sent out and who will be getting them.  As we discussed in the configuration video, the Email Template Form should look very familiar.  Use the To: and CC: boxes to select email recipients, and the subject, attachments, and message boxes to craft the actual email.

QC Reconciliation – 05:45

The final task in our workflow is QC Reconciliation and it is a required one.  On this page, the aliquots you've selected to process are listed with their data.  If you'd like to change the data displayed, use the Select List Format drop-down.  To reconcile the aliquots, first, make sure that the Fields to Scan for Reconciliation is set correctly for you. We will use the system generated Unique Aliquot ID.  Click check to get started with the reconciliation.  You can either reconcile using manual entry with a barcode scanner for instance or by using import however your organization operates.  Note that you can only import .txt or .CSV files, and if your file has a header record make sure to check on Header Record Included.  Now, if any of the values you enter are incorrect or there are values missing, the QC check will fail and you will be provided information as to why that happened.  What values were scanned when not in the current selection and what values are in the selection but weren't scanned.  At this point you will then need to perform another QC check from scratch in order to process the workflow, but once the QC check passes you will get green text saying verified where the Check button used to be and a little check mark where the red asterisk used to be. 

Process Workflow – 07:20

Now we can finally process the workflow.  Click Process Workflow and the confirmation will appear.  It is here that you can provide a Workflow Run Name or must provide one if it is required.  We will enter “Train Run 1” (very, very creative).  Click continue and the workflow tasks will begin to take action:

1. First, you'll see save dialogues for any exports that were selected. Workflow 1 was one of them and will find a little spot for it; we’ll do it on the desktop right now. 
2. Second, you'll receive a print dialog for all the reports that were selected, select the desired printers and print them.
3. Third, the Print Labels screen will appear so you can finalize your selection before actually printing labels. If everything is correct click Print.
4. Fourth and finally, an image of the shipping box you selected will appear. Click Print to print the picture and then Done to move on. 

You will then be returned to the inventory list view with the aliquots you selected highlighted. Oh and I just got the email that was part of that workflow!  Of course, any emails that are attached to your workflow will be sent after processing.  The updates you made in the workflow will be visible in the list view and in the aliquots.  Take special note of the Aliquot Status field as it will be changed as configured in the workflow, which for us all the aliquots are now set to Checked Out.  If we open View Workflow History, we'll see the workflow I just processed.

Conclusion – 09:40

Well, that does it for this processing workflow discussion! Join us in our next video as we wrap up workflows with a discussion of freezer positions.  Thanks for watching, see you next time!