Workflow Drafts

When you are working on a workflow in the Workflow Editor, Save and Save As validate the workflow before saving, and issue an error message, without saving if the workflow is not valid. Save as Draft allows you to save workflows you are building as work-in-progress. You can save your current workflow changes in whatever state the workflow is in and return to the workflow editor to complete the workflow at a later time. You can also save the workflow changes periodically as you work.

Until a workflow has been fully edited and validated, it is invisible in WorldServer except for the purpose of editing. That is, it will appear in the Management > Workflow > Workflows page with the string [draft] appended to the its name. It will not appear in drop-down lists of workflows elsewhere in WorldServer.

The Save as Draft menu option can be used for saving both new and pre-existing workflows as drafts. When a new workflow is saved as a draft, you are required to enter a name for the workflow draft. When a pre-existing workflow is saved as a draft, the name of the pre-existing workflow is simply re-used, and there is no way for you to save the workflow draft under a different name.

The Save menu option cannot be used on the workflow draft until it is complete. Attempting to Save a workflow draft will fail workflow validation as usual until it is fully completed. However, one can save the workflow as a draft as many times as desired without any workflow validation. Once Save is successfully performed on a workflow draft, it is moved out of the “draft” state into a complete state and it will now be visible in WorldServer.

If work has resumed on a previously completed workflow, it can also be saved as a workflow draft. When a draft version of the complete workflow is saved, the version of the complete workflow is still visible and available in WorldServer. Both the original version and the newly saved draft version of the workflow now co-exist in WorldServer. The draft version exists for editing purposes only; in contrast, the original version is still available for all purposes in WorldServer.

Until the draft version is saved as a complete workflow, the original workflow before the draft was made persists in WorldServer just as it was before drafting. Both the original and draft workflows must have the same name. It is not possible to save the workflow draft under a different name from the original workflow.

It is possible to revert back to the original version, throwing away the draft. For example, say you open a complete workflow for editing and start making changes, then save the new version of the workflow as a draft. If you then decide that you are going down the wrong path and want to discard all your changes and start again with the original complete workflow, this is what to do. Simply re-open the complete workflow again for editing. WorldServer detects that there is a draft version of this workflow available and gives you two options:

Continue working on the draft version.
Discard the draft version and re-open the original version of complete workflow again for editing.

After the draft version of the workflow is saved as a complete workflow, the original version of the workflow is replaced and is no longer visible in WorldServer. As usual in WorldServer, the original version of the workflow persists as an invisible workflow if current projects or tasks were using that version. But it is no longer available for selection in WorldServer and will be garbage collected when it is no longer in use.