Routing a document through a workflow produces a new revision of the document. Documents may be routed through one of three types of document workflows. A vault may use one or more of them for different purposes. Consult a system administrator for the document workflow types configured for the vaults you use. For more information on document workflow types, see Understanding document workflow types.
Regardless of the types of workflow that may be configured for a vault, the available workflow transitions for each document depend on many rules. The workflow transitions available to you for any particular document depend on your security role for the folder in which the document resides. If you are starting a workflow, you may have more than one workflow available to you. If you are continuing a workflow, you may have more than one transition in the current workflow available to you. To view a diagram of the current workflow and other status information, see Viewing the current workflow.
Warning Revoking a workflow deletes the copy of the document being changed in the workflow and reinstates the released revision of the original document as the highest revision. If the document was created new in the workflow, it is also deleted but there is no original document to reinstate so be certain that the document will not be needed or a backup copy is kept elsewhere before revoking the document’s workflow.Throughout a document workflow, the current status of the document, the next task to be performed, the person assigned to that task, and the person who initiated the workflow are all shown on the Document property page of each document in the workflow.
Routing batches of documents is only possible under certain circumstances:
Select a workflow transition from the Workflow ribbon or click Reroute Documents.
If you select a Quick Change transition, a confirmation dialog box appears.
Otherwise, a dialog box appears for intermediate transitions.
If your computer is configured to use a site cache, a confirmation dialog appears if:
Click Yes.
The document’s workflow properties are updated to reflect its current status. If the transition places the document under change by you, the document is downloaded to your local workspace for editing by you.
Tip The document is also added to the Recent Items list on the Windows Start menu for easy access.
Note If the vault is configured to generate workflow event notifications, email messages are sent to the persons to which the documents were routed and, optionally, to the workflow managers and to the subscribers of the documents. Event notifications that are generated as part of a batch operation are grouped together as a single email message.
Warning When a new revision is made of a document, any references to or from other documents will be updated to reference the new revision, not the original revision. This may have serious consequences for configuration management that may apply to your organization. If so, consider using Replace Document or Derive Document instead.
Related concepts
Understanding document workflow types
Understanding project workflow types
Understanding document security
Related tasks