Hello everyone,
With the last versions of REI3 Tasks & REI3 Absence, we also included another application we´ve been working on between customer projects and development for REI3 itself - a little app called REI3 Workflows.
For many years we´ve been implementing workflows into REI3 apps - most of them in customer applications. These were only as complex as the customer needed, often with parts of the workflow being fixed or "hard-coded". Some options were implemented, but as soon as the workflow would need change in large parts, we had to work on it again.
No individual customer was interested in a flexible workflow solution as this would be too much effort for their individual requirements. That is why, in the background, we´ve been working on it ourselves.
Introducing: REI3 Workflows
This new application allows you to create any workflow you want. Simple or complex, single approver or multiple parties, merged paths, dynamic approval from superiors, etc.
The real power though comes from how REI3 Workflows interacts with other REI3 applications. Any REI3 application can announce "events" to REI3 Workflows so that it can react to it. Starting approval workflows if a new absence request is created, continuing an existing workflow if a ticket was closed that was created in the same workflow, and much more.
Applications can also offer "actions" to REI3 Workflows so that your designed workflows can do things in other apps. This can be pretty much anything you can think of - from approving stuff, to changing data, to creating new records.
How to get your hands on it
We purposefully have not added REI3 Workflows to our public application page, because we want to get more feedback in. The basic app was ready months ago, but due to high work load we´ve only just finished testing, polishing and documentation.
You can find and install REI3 Workflows from the repository in the REI3 admin panel. It will also automatically come with the latest versions of REI3 Tasks & REI3 Absence; these two applications are the first of our standard apps that are now integrated with REI3 Workflows. You can already build workflows that interact with them.
We are currently working on integrating REI3 Tickets, and plan to integrate other apps as well (IT Assets, Time Tracker, etc.), though we do not have a date for this yet.
If you plan to use it, please take a look at the help articles in the application itself. They are available in English & German.
How to integrate your own apps
The help articles in REI3 Workflows contain chapters on how to integrate your own apps. It takes some thought on what events and which actions your app should expose to REI3 Workflows - integration itself though should only take a couple of hours.
Once integrated, you can use REI3 Workflows to build complex workflows that can do pretty much anything you want in your app - or react to changes in it. You can even build workflows that interact with multiple applications.
If you need a reference on how integration can look, please take a look at the current version of REI3 Tasks or REI3 Absence. In these, you can find backend functions with the "wf" prefix - these take care of the basic integration. Together with the help articles in REI3 Workflows, you should be able to integrate your apps. You can also ask in the forum if you have questions or need help of course.
Next steps
We hope to get some feedback from our community, if you guys/gals are interested :)
Once we´ve collected more data, found and fixed more issues and integrated some more apps, we will announce it properly.
In the meantime, we are using it ourselves to make sure it´s as reliable as we can make it.
REI3 Workflows was, and still is, a major project for us internally and we are happy to finally share it with you.
