Transition Equivalence

Transition equivalence is the ability to run the transitions of a batch of documents all at the same time, even if the documents are currently in different states or different workflows. Transition equivalence makes multiple transitions equivalent in terms of their effectivity on the change control of documents. Without transition equivalence, a batch of documents in different states cannot be routed at the same time. Instead, each document must be routed individually with its valid transitions.

Transitions can be made equivalent based on the following conditions:

• They have the same source state.
• They have the same equivalence tag.
• They have the same destination state.

An equivalence tag is simply a keyword that the transitions have in common. Equivalence tags are useful if the transitions cannot meet either of the other conditions, that is, the same source or destination states.

For example, consider the workflow definition in the following figure. The transitions Capital Issue and Maint. Issue have both been configured with the equivalence tag Issue (not shown).

If a batch of documents contains some that are in the state Capital Budget and some that are in Maint. Budget, they can all be routed to the Issued state in one batch because they have the same equivalence tag. Incidentally, they could also be routed if the transition equivalence options of both transitions were set to All transitions to the same destination state.