Step 3: Create Workflows [web|gui]
This part of the tutorial steps you through the process of creating two workflows for a peer review process. The first workflow is for the administrator of a digital library. The second workflow manages the review process for a submitted document.
1. Select the Workflow Editor tool from the list of tools on the Metis home page. The workflow editor's home page will be loaded. If this is your first time using the workflow editor, you will not see any existing workflows listed. Instead, there will be a field that allows you to create a new workflow.
2. In the text field, type admin-workflow and click the Create Workflow button. A new workflow will be created and the workflow editor's edit page will be loaded. The edit page presents a table view of the workflow that allows the workflow to be manipulated. It is best to think of workflows as tree structures, in which internal nodes are structure nodes and leaf nodes are event nodes. Structure nodes consist of the root node as well as sequence, fork, branch, and loop nodes. In the table view, structure nodes are displayed in blue. The root node is the only member of our workflow currently. The root node bears the name of the workflow. (See the figure below, for the initial state of the workflow editor.) The pop-up menu next to the Add button lists the nodes that can appear "under" the associated node. Each Metis structure node can have any number of children, except for loop and event nodes.
3. Select Sequence from the pop-up menu, and click the Add button. The resulting workflow appears below. The workflow editor now shows that the admin workflow begins with a sequence. Now we must add children to the sequence node. If you examine the pop-up menu for the sequence node, you will see that in addition to structure nodes, it also contains entries for each of the Metis events created in Step 2 of this tutorial.
4. Select submissionReceived in the pop-up menu next to the sequence node and click its associated Add button. The submissionReceived event node now appears as a child of the sequence node. In the table view, event nodes are displayed in red.
5. Select submissionProcessed in the pop-up menu next to the sequence node and click its associated Add button. The submissionProcessed event now appears as the second child of the sequence node. The resulting workflow appears below.
We have now finished defining the workflow for the administrator of the digital library. It essentially says that a submission will be received, the administrator will process it, and then announce that the submission is ready for review by generating the submissionProcessed event. (The submissionReceived event will be generated by a web form that will be built in Step 5 of the tutorial.)
6. Click on the Save Workflow button to return to the home page of the workflow editor. Now you will see the admin-workflow listed as one of the existing workflows. You will also see a new set of buttons that allow the editing, duplicating, renaming, and deletion of existing workflows.
We will now create the workflow to manage the review process. The review-workflow starts with the same two events as the admin-workflow, so we will make use of the Duplicate Workflow and Rename Workflow buttons to get started on the process of creating this second workflow.
7. With the admin-workflow selected, click the Duplicate Workflow button. The home page will refresh and now display two existing workflows, one with the name admin-workflow (copy).
8. Select the duplicate workflow, and click on the Rename Workflow button. The Rename Workflow editor is displayed.
9. Rename the workflow to review-workflow and click the Rename Workflow button. The home page of the workflow editor is displayed once more, now with two workflows named as desired.
10. With the review-workflow selected, click on the Edit Workflow button. The review-workflow looks exactly like the admin-workflow did when we finished with step 5 above.
11. Using the pop-up menu located next to the sequence node, add three more children to the sequence: actionEditorAssigned, reviewerAssigned, and a loop node.
12. Using the pop-up menu located next to the loop node, select reviewComplete and click on the Set Loop Until button. The "loop until" event is the event that indicates that a loop in a Metis workflow has completed.
13. Using the pop-up menu located next to the loop's sequence node, add two events to the branch: deadlineAssigned and deadlinePassed. Since it may take several attempts to get a review from a reviewer, Metis will iterate over these two events until a reviewComplete event has been received. Your workflow should look similar in structure to the simulation below.
review-workflow
sequence
submissionReceived
submissionProcessed
actionEditorAssigned
reviewerAssigned
loop
reviewComplete
sequence
deadlineAssigned
deadlinePassed
14. Returning to the pop-up menu located next to the workflow's sequence node, add a fork node to the sequence. Set its type to xor by selecting xor from the pop-up menu and clicking the Set Type button.
15. Add three branches to the new fork node.
16. To the first branch, add the following event: authorNotifiedOfSuccess.
17. To the second branch, add the following event: authorNotifiedOfRejection.
18. To the third branch, add the following event: authorNotifiedOfRequiredRevision.
Your workflow should look similar in structure to the simulation below.
review-workflow
sequence
submissionReceived
submissionProcessed
actionEditorAssigned
reviewerAssigned
loop
reviewComplete
sequence
deadlineAssigned
deadlinePassed
fork [xor]
branch
authorNotifiedOfSuccess
branch
authorNotifiedOfRejection
branch
authorNotifiedOfRequiredRevision
19. Click the Save Workflow button to save the review-workflow.
The review workflow steps the subcomittee of editors through the process of picking a particular editor to manage the review process, assigning one reviewer, waiting for his or her review, and notifing the author of the review results. This workflow is obviously simplified, but it can serve as a starting point for more complex review processes.