Understanding transition equivalence

Transition equivalence is the equality of a transition in one document workflow to a different transition in a different document workflow. This makes it possible to run a transition for one document in a batch of documents and have it run equivalent transitions in other documents within the batch even if the transitions don’t have the same name, source state, or destination state.

For example, consider a batch of three documents. The next and final transition of one of the documents is named Release and completes its workflow. The final transition of the other two documents is named Issue and completes their workflows. Also assume that a system administrator has defined the first document’s Release transition to be equivalent to the other documents’ Issue transition. By executing the first document’s Release transition, the other two documents’ Issue transitions will run as well, completing the workflows of all three documents in one step.

A system administrator can define transition equivalence between:

• All transitions to the same destination state
• All transitions with the same tag name
• All transitions from the same source state
• No other transition

Although very powerful, end users may not understand transition equivalence right away. Explain or, better yet, document any transition equivalence for the end users.