Chances are you've probably had some experience with CMS workflow; whether it be planning the stages, actions and logic; or implementing and coding these processes; or just simply clicking pretty buttons that say "Approve" or "Send for Review". Workflow is the core to any CMS and so planning one can be a very daunting dilemma.

Every client and every project will have different business rules for managing content workflow, whether it be sending a recent advertising promotion to an external publisher or simply uploading and saving an image. This workflow will be painstakingly planned out to accommodate the business logic of the system which will take into consideration many things, but to name a few:

• what production stages, from start to finish and back again, are required;
• what access rights at each stage should be enforced to determine who can see and edit the items;
• what the state of the item should be at each stage e.g. visible, locked, in progress, etc...

The list can go on and on! The next step is for this workflow to be handed to the awesome people of Professional Services, whom I can gladly say I am a part of, who will then work away at their keyboards taking the business logic and creating an intermediary interface to tell VYRE Unify what to do as almost all requirements of workflow will have to do far more complex things than the standard workflow. I hope to enlighten you with a non-techie, technical introduction to, perhaps, the less familiar side of VYRE Unify Workflow.

Where the magic happens

VYRE Unify comes with several default workflow actions for moving items between versions and indexes, these can be considered our workflow canvas; all workflow will utilise one or more of these in order to perform the desired action. For those of you who are unfamiliar, VYRE Unify has two indexes. One index is for working items that can be edited; and the other for uneditable, active items - an item can exist in both indexes but an active item will usually be an approved or final version whilst the working version will be for items currently being edited or 'in progress' - working items are usually hidden from view on the customer facing sites.

Working Index: Items in the working index can be checked-in and checked-out, a checked-out item means that a user takes possession of it and it becomes locked and bound to the user until they, and only them, check it back in. A checked-out item will be searchable and appear in the working index but will not be viewable to others who attempt to open it.

Active Index: Items in the active index cannot be edited, they must first be moved to the working index either by checking them out or deactivating them. All changes to an item will happen in the working index.

The workflow actions Unify has, which get shaped into providing the ultimate workflow solution, are as follows:

Creating New Items

• Create - This will create a new item and place it into the working index as version 1. The item will also be checked-out, locked, to the user who created the item so nobody else can touch it. The item will have no active version and ONLY exist in the working index.
• Create and Check In - This will create an item, similar to above, but not lock it. This means that any other user with appropriate permissions may edit this item. Again, this item will only appear in the working index. Although two actions are taking place only one version is created.
• Create and Activate - This will create a new item and put it straight into the active index. There will be no working version of this item.

Editing Existing Items (the active item will be unaffected by any of these)

• Update - This action is only available to items in the working index and will simply save any changes to the current working version. A new version number will not be created.
• Checkout - To prevent two people editing the same item at the same time VYRE Unify locks items to the editing user. This prevents many nasty things from happening and without it all hell would break lose. Therefore to edit an item it must be checked out first. Checking out will lock a working version item to the current user, meaning that no-one else can edit it. If the item is in the active index then a copy will be placed in the working index that is locked to the current user. This is the only action that will increase the version number. If an item is already checked out, this action will be blocked.
• Checkin - Unlocks the item from the current user so anyone with permission can edit the item.
• Discard - Undoes any changes made to the current working version; rolls back the item to the last version.
• Checkout, Update and Checkin - Performs all three actions in one, thus saving many laborious button clicks.

Moving Items

• Delete - Send the item to VYRE Unify's recycle bin. This item will no longer appear in the working or active index, but like any other recycle bin system items can be recovered.
• Activate - Moves the current working version over to the active index. The item will no longer be visible in the working index.
• Deactivate - Moves the current active item into the working index. The item will no longer appear in the active index.

Although items in VYRE Unify are completely version controlled only the most recent version of each will be visible in each index. Versions are only incremented when an item is checked-out. Any active item that also has a working version will inform the user that the item has a working version.

Custom Workflow

Most, if not all, clients have far greater requirements than simply working items and active items and so most employ a status system attached to workflow. Having these statuses means that items can be given contextual meaning to where they are in their workflow journey and using the VYRE Unify workflow for managing versions and all the technical stuff.

Other actions can also be automated as part of workflow actions to make sure they meet the business requirement, such as linking items to users, changing custom status.