Workflows Overview
"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing."
– W. Edwards Deming
Workflows are a powerful way to plan your work, then work your plan. When a Project is created with a Workflow assigned, Milestones will automatically import into the project and actions such as emails, tasks, text messages, questions will immediately commence.
Workflows can be designed as ridged or as flexible in usage as you desire. Consider the Workflow as your standard guide in project management and depending on the Questions you design and on your permissions, the Workflow can be altered on the fly to take your Project in any direction in order to handle most real-world scenarios.
Workflows are designed within Company Settings, Workflows (permission required).
To import Workflows from another one of your Companies, click the three dots in the upper-right corner and click Import Workflows.
Workflows are a collection of ordered Milestones. Milestones are the significant steps, or benchmarks, in your step-by-step process. Milestones can be used in many workflows.
Workflow Settings
The only workflow setting deals with how you want your previously completed Milestones to behave when Project conditions change. Sometimes things change that could negate a previously satisfied Milestone condition. The natural operation of the Workflow is to revert back to that unsatisfied Milestone. Meaning you could have a project with a status of Post-Production, something happens with the Project, and then it reverts back to Pre-Production. Therefore, if you wish the completed Milestones to remain complete, regardless of what happens within the project, check the following setting.
Workflow Alterations
If a workflow is used in Projects, but then changes (i.e. team member change, milestone additions/subtractions, etc) those changes will only appear on any new Workflow import. The state of a Project Workflow remains the same regardless of any changes made to the Company Workflow.
In a Project
The Project Workflow notifies and shows the Project Team exactly what has been done, what currently needs to be done, and what's coming up in order for that Project to be successful. It is the accountability you've been looking for.
Workflows can be designed for different types of Projects. For Roofing, we often see a Workflow created for Retail work, one created for Insurance work, and one created for Warranty/Service work since each of these most likely have a different process with different people involved.