Defining the Process
When working with the Status Visual, it is important to understand how the visual should interact with the rest of the solution and determine which users should be able to set specific statuses under various conditions.
The first step when setting up the Status Visual is therefore to define the process. An example of a process regarding yearly financial budgeting could be this:
The Budget Process of Client A consists of three sub-processes:
- OPEX exkl Personnel Planning
- Revenue Planning
- Headcount and Salary Planning
Let's focus on one of the sub processes:
For the sub process OPEX exkl Personnel Planning, the Head of Department of each department is responsible for preparing their budget. Once completed, they will notify the Manager, who is responsible for approving or rejecting the budgets for all departments. Once the Manager have approved all departments, they need to inform the Head Controller, responsible for the entire budget process, so that they can approve or reject the OPEX exkl Personnel Planning.
This would mean that the Processes Statuses that would be needed are these:
- In Progress
- Ready for Approval
- Approved By Manager
- Locked
Now, we need to think about what statuses different users can check, and what the action of each status should be. This could be defined as below, having the editable report being locked for all values except for "In Progress".
Process Key | Process Name | Action | Editable to |
|---|---|---|---|
0 | In Progress | Enables entering budget values. | If ProcessKey is smaller than 2, Manager and Head Controller can edit, otherwise only Head Controller can set status "In Progress" |
1 | Ready for Approval | Locks the Head of Department option to go back to "In Progress" | As long as Process Key is 0, this is open to anyone and ruled by the models RLS, else it is always locked |
2 | Approved by manager | Locks the Managers option to change back to "In Progress" This is the Managers approval to let Head Controller know they are done. If not approved, status is set back to "In Progress" | If ProcessKey is smaller than 2, Manager and Head Controller can edit, otherwise only Head Controller can set status "In Progress" |
3 | Locked | Marks the finalization of the Budget Process | Head Controller is the only one who can edit, always open for them. |