Understanding interlocks

Interlocks are rules based on the values of certain properties of project folders or of documents. Interlocks determine the validity, and therefore visibility, of a project workflow transition to be executed. The validity is based on the organization’s business procedures.

Interlocks are defined in a project definition and are applied to the transitions of the project definition’s workflow or a document workflow definition. Since interlocks are independent of any specific workflow transition, they can be used with any workflow transition.

The system supports two kinds of interlocks: project workflow interlocks and document workflow interlocks. Project workflow interlocks can be based upon the current project or its sub-projects. Document workflow interlocks can be based upon all, any, or no documents contained with a project folder. Both types of interlocks can affect the workflow of the project itself, its parent project, or the topmost project of a project hierarchy.

Project workflow example

As an example of a project workflow interlock, assume the following:

• According to the organization’s business procedures, any electrical sub-projects should not start before their overall project has started.
• A simple project folder hierarchy consisting of one project folder that contains several sub-project folders.
• The project folder was created from a project definition that uses a folder type named Commercial.
• The Commercial folder type uses a property named Is Under Revision.
• The sub-project folders were created from a project definition with a workflow that contains a transition named Start.

In this example, a project workflow interlock should be created based on the Commercial folder type, the Discipline property equal to Electrical, and based on the project itself. After the interlock has been created, it should be applied to the Start transition of the project definition of the sub-project folder.

Document workflow example

As an example of a document workflow interlock, assume the following:

• According to the organization’s business procedures, no sub-projects should complete until all their project plan, detailed drawing, and specifications documents have been released from change.
• The vault is configured with document types named Project Plan, Detail Drawing, and Specification.
• The document types use a property named Status.
• The sub-project folders were created from a project definition with a workflow that contains a transition named Complete.

In this example, a document workflow interlock should be created based on the Project Plan, Detail Drawing, and Specification document types, the Status property equal to Released, and based on all documents. After the interlock has been created, it should be applied to the Complete transition of the project definition of the sub-project folder.