Managing bot workflows

• Overview
• Building workflows
  
  • Details
  • Requester
  • Approver
  • Set triggers
• Processing approval requests
  • Receiving approval requests as an approver
  • Receiving approval responses as a requester
• Reviewing ongoing/past requests
• Feedback

Looking to automate more of your workflows and processes with Josef? 

With Workflows, you can automate everything from contract approval processes, document reviews, compliance checks, leave of absence requests, project proposals, and more. Workflows helps teams streamline more processes and guarantee consistent outputs every time. 

Here's how to build workflows in your bots.

• Note: Workflows is only available for bots built in Form view.

• 0:17 Example: Generating an Master Service Agreement for approval
• 1:11 Receiving an approval request email
• 1:27 Approving a document
• 3:29 Receiving a rejection notification
• 4:18 Creating a new workflow
• 6:16 Tracking approvals in Activity

Overview

Once set up, workflows on Josef work like this:

1. To start, an end-user completes their bot interaction and generates a given document (optional).
   • Note: If a document is being generated for approval, be sure to set the message type as Internal document so that the user will not be able to access it until it’s approved.
2. The interaction (and document) are automatically sent to a nominated approver via email for review.
   • They are then able to review the interaction (and document), provide feedback, and approve/reject the approval request.
3. The approver’s response is then sent via email to a nominated requester to follow up.
4. If the approval request is accepted, done! The requester's interaction (and document) can be used accordingly. 
5. If the approval request is rejected, the requester can review any feedback, resume the interaction, and resubmit the interaction for approval, if necessary.

[Image: The contents of a workflow accessible via Dashboard > [bot] > Workflows]

Building workflows

Workflows works hand in hand with bot logic set up in either List view and Flowchart. To create a workflow, builders simply need to

1. First, build out their bot’s logic,
2. Automate a document or two (optional), then
3. Head into Workflows to set up the relevant approval processes.

Create new approval workflow

To create an approval workflow, input the relevant details under New approval workflow to ensure both the Requester and Approver have everything they need to get things moving.

Here’s a run-through of each field you'll need to populate.

[Image: An example approval workflow setup including Details and Requester details]

Details

• Workflow name
  • Give the approval workflow a relevant name to help you identify it later on.

Requester

• Requester email address
  • The person requesting something for approval (i.e. most likely the end-user of the bot).
    • Note: If your bot does not include a message collecting the end user’s email address, you will need to add one before being able to create the workflow.
• Message to requester
  • The final message delivered to the bot end-user if a workflow is set up (e.g. "Thank you for providing this information. We will review your details and get back to you in 2 business days.").

[Image: An example of a Message to requester displayed to bot end-users upon submitting their interactions]

 

Approver

• Approver email address
  • The contact who will review the approval request (and any generated documents), provide feedback, and provide a response (i.e. “Accept” or “Reject”).
    
    • Note: Approvers do not require Josef accounts.  
• Message to approver
  • Include a specific approval request or context to ensure the approver knows exactly what is expected of them.
• Approver response
  • How an approver can respond (i.e. “Accept” or “Reject”).
• Create workflow
  • Once you’ve populated all of the above fields, click this button!

[Image: An example approval workflow setup including Approver and Trigger details]

Set triggers

Once you’ve populated the details and contents of your approval workflow, you can determine when it is triggered.

Approval workflows are only triggered once an end-user reaches a final message in your bot (i.e., once they have clicked “Submit now” in the bot UI).

However, if your bot has one or more final messages, you can set up specific triggers so that the workflow is triggered only in certain circumstances (i.e., when an end-user reaches a specific final message).

• Hint: If you have created notification triggers in the past, you’ll find this setup very familiar!
• Note: Currently, one workflow can be triggered per interaction. It is not possible to trigger multiple.  

 

To set or edit an approval workflow’s trigger,

1. Locate the relevant approval workflow, then
2. Click Set trigger.
3. Next, in the Edit trigger sidebar, click Add rule and Add group to set the relevant triggers based on how end-users interact with your bot.
   • Note: For a refresher on how to create rules, visit this article. Alternatively, to learn how to create rule groups, see here.
   • Hint: If a trigger requires multiple rules, be sure the Any/All toggle is applied correctly. When Any is applied, satisfying any of the rules will trigger the approval workflow. Whereas, when All is applied, all of the inputted rules will need to be met.
4. Once everything is ready, toggle the approval workflow from Draft to Live. 
   • Note: Only Live approval workflows are triggered in live bots. They do not send from bots accessed in Preview mode. 

Processing approval requests

Once a Workflow has been set up and pushed to the live version of a bot (by clicking either Launch or Update bot in the Launch tab), it will begin sending according to end-user interactions.

Here’s how approvers both receive and can respond to approval requests.

Receiving approval requests as an approver

Once an end-user submits their bot interaction and triggers the relevant approval workflow, a request is sent to the approver via email.

• Note: The sender is notifications@joseflegal.com.

The email will be sent to the email inputted in the workflow’s Approver email address and contain the content inputted in Message to approver.

In the email, approvers are prompted to click Review request. Once clicked, they’ll be taken to the Approval page to respond.

[Image: An example email sent to an approver requesting approval]

Responding to requests as an approver

Within a request's Approval page, approvers will find

1. A summary of the end-user’s interaction (including their responses),
2. A document Download link (optional),
3. The Approval decision sidebar where they can
   1. Review the Message to approver (located in the purple text box),
   2. Determine their Decision (i.e. “Approve” or “Reject”),
   3. Provide text-based Feedback, and also
   4. Re-upload a new document of their choosing via Upload file.
      • Note: Supported file types include .docx and .pdf. 
4. Once reviewed, approvers can click Submit to submit their response.

[Image: The Approval page where approvers review requests after clicking Review request in the request email]

Receiving approval responses as a requester

Once an approver has responded to a request, the nominated requester will receive the approval outcome via email.

This will contain a link to the approval page, which features

1. The approver’s feedback,
2. A link to the original bot-generated document (if approved),
3. A link to the re-uploaded document (if uploaded by approver), and
4. A link to the end-user interaction.
   
   • If approved, the linked interaction will be locked.
   • If rejected, the linked interaction will be unlocked and open to edits and re-submission.

Reviewing ongoing/past requests

Approval workflow bot owners and Admins can review the status and responses to a bot's approval requests anytime via its Activity tab.

To get a high-level overview of an approval’s status, locate the relevant interaction and view its Approval decision and Status columns.

An interaction can have the following Approval decision:

• Approved
• Rejected
• Pending
  • Sent to approval and awaiting response.
• N/A
  • No workflow was triggered.

A bot interaction can have the following Status:

• Complete
• Incomplete

To review an approval request in further detail, select to expand an interaction from those available. Below the end-user’s responses, there’ll be the following.

1. The original bot-generated document link (optional),
2. Submitted for approval,
   • Including the date, time and approver email. 
3. Response from approver, and
   • Including date, time, approver email, the decision, and feedback.  
     • Note: If an interaction is submitted for approval multiple times, only the most recent decision and feedback will be displayed in Activity.
4. The approver's uploaded document link (if uploaded).

[Image: Bot interactions featuring the contents of approval requests, responses, and Approval decisions in Activity]

Feedback

We want to ensure Workflows is as helpful as it can possibly be! If you have any feedback, please share it via this two-minute tool. 

 

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Got a question? Contact us at support@joseflegal.com.