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how to do Lazy Approval.


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Hi Guys,

I work aound the Email Event to send email notification about the status of the approval process whether it has been approved or declined.

 

Step-1:

 

Now, I would like to send email FOR Approval or Declining the worklist item. User gets an email with message body as

 

'To action your task via email, respond with one of the following actions:

Approve

Decline

 

Once the user type the Approve and reply to the email , the task action should action accordingly and advance the workflow. 

 

Step-2: Approval Task should be two parallel task. First one is the smartform activity and another one in parallel is email approval task. User can approve either through email or smartform and either one will advance the workflow to next approval task. Concept of parallel activity.

 

Please help me find the resources or any guidance will be greatful to work on this scenario. Thanks a lot.

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Best answer by ScottPK2 25 May 2016, 21:15

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Userlevel 1
Badge +8

Hi,

 

First, you have to have an Exchange Server with EWS properly configured.

 

Next, you'll have to ensure that K2 is setup for SmartAction (ie Approvals Via Email). You can read more about setting up for Smart Actions here: http://help.k2.com/onlinehelp/K2blackpearl/ICG/current/webframe.html#K2_SmartActions_Installation.html#tracksearch=SmartActions

 

Finally, if your process in the client event you will:

  • Enable sending task notifications as it is these notifications that are responsible for Smart Actions.
  • When defining actions, be sure and enable "Make the Action Available without opening the work item". (Thick client verbiage, there should be something similar in the web designer. This is enabled per action.

That is it. When are user receives the task notification they will see the verbiage you desire and can reply with the appropriate action. If you want alternative words to be used for common action options, you can define synonyms in the K2 configuration file: http://help.k2.com/onlinehelp/K2blackpearl/UserGuide/current/webframe.html#SmartAction_Synonyms.html#tracksearch=Synonyms

 

For more on customizing Smart Actions you can check out this link: http://help.k2.com/onlinehelp/K2blackpearl/UserGuide/current/webframe.html#K2_SmartActions_K2_Server_Configuration.html#tracksearch=SmartActions

 

Hope this helps.

 

S.

 

Badge +9

That's a great feedback Scott,

I could able to send email notification and user can able to 'Approve or Deny' in response to the email and workflow activity advance to the next level. So far so good. However, if the user deny, I have a required field validator that Comments field (textbox) should be filled in case of SmartForm which I do not know how to handle this and the result is activity completed without advancing to the next task/activity. Is this just fair enough to supply the keyword like Approve or Deny and does not support validation. I wonder if it could be possible in this lazy approval. Please share some ideas. Thanks a lot once again.

Userlevel 1
Badge +8

That is the one missing feature in Smart Actions, the ability to collect comments. There are some solutions floating around that come up with a way to handle comments that require some 3rd party shenanigans. 

 

What you could do in the short term is uncheck "Make this available...." on the decline action when you create it which till disable it from lazy approval which then will force the user to open the form to action and provide the comments.

 

S.

Badge +9

Thank you Scott. How to handle the situation not to complete the task even if the user Deny without comments. Is there any exceptional handling in email approval if required field are not supplied rather than not giving an access to 'Deny' action. and keep the activity still active and send email 'error has occured as comments required and submit through form'. Just a thought.

The links in ScottPCaliber post are broken. 

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