Workflow

Most of the time a workflow runs in the background: you complete the tasks it gives you, and it decides what happens next. This page covers what you can see and do when you need more control.

Follow a workflow

A record’s workflow panel lists its workflows and their steps. For each step you can see:

• Estimated start and completion dates, projected from the workflow template’s durations.
• Actual start and completion dates, once the step runs.
• Its status, for example Queued (waiting for an app server), Pending (waiting on outside work or a data condition), Complete, Error, or Canceled.
• For if/then steps, whether the result was True or False.

The workflow itself shows when it started and completed, and whether it’s on hold. A workflow completes on its own when no steps remain to start and none are still in progress.

Work your tasks

When a workflow reaches a human step, it creates a task on the record, usually assigned through a worklist. Completing the task completes the step, and the workflow moves on. See Forms and Worklists.

Add a step when it’s needed

Some steps are ad-hoc: they’re part of the workflow template but only happen when someone adds them, for example an interim review or an extra follow-up. Where your task list offers ad-hoc steps, adding one creates it on the current workflow and opens its task for you to fill in. A template can cap how many times an ad-hoc step may be added.

If your administrator has published ad-hoc workflows, New Ad-Hoc Workflow starts one of them on the record.

Put a workflow on hold

Use a hold when work has to pause for something outside your control, such as waiting on a third party or a dispute.

1. Open the Holds tab on the record and add a new hold, choosing its type.
2. Fill in the hold’s task if it has one (for example, the reason and expected duration).
3. When the outside event is resolved, complete the hold.

While a hold is open, steps that were in progress when it started can’t be completed, so the workflow doesn’t advance past them. Holds can also change the record’s status, and QBO records how long each hold lasted so reports can separate waiting time from working time.

Correct a workflow

These actions require permission, and some installations reserve them for supervisors.

Action	Use it when	What happens
Restart	Work must be redone from an earlier point.	Choose a completed step, a Restart Date, and a Reason. QBO cancels the workflow and starts a new one that carries over its steps, including that one; the steps that depend on it are dropped and run again. Not available while a hold is open.
Skip Forward	Work happened outside QBO and the workflow needs to catch up.	Choose the step to skip to, a date, and a Reason. That step, every step leading up to it, and any step still in progress are marked complete, and the workflow continues from there.
Cancel	The workflow should stop.	The workflow and its unfinished steps are canceled, along with their open tasks and worklist items.
Re-Activate	A canceled or completed workflow should continue.	Clears the cancel and completion dates so the workflow can process again.
Re-Process	A step failed, for example because an outside service was down.	Select the workflows, choose the step, and Reprocess Workflow Steps Immediately or at a Later Time. That step is reset and queued to run again, and completed workflows are re-activated.

Restart and Skip Forward each add a message to the record with the reason you gave, so the change is part of the audit trail.

On the step list, users with testing permission can also Execute Now (run selected steps immediately) or Skip Steps (complete them without running them; for if/then steps, choose True or False as the result).

Note

Menu labels can vary by installation; your administrator can rename or hide options.