Locus Platform offers numerous tools for improving your organization’s compliance strategies, such as dynamic workflows, notifications, and dashboards. Workflows are the most visual and interactive of these tools. They can be added to any entity to enforce structure, divide tasks between users, schedule actions, and issue efficient reminders. Locus Workflows are the foundation of environmental, health, and safety compliance strategies. For example, your team can create a dynamic Workflow to ensure that all Title V permit renewal steps, including emission calculations, paperwork completion, internal review and submission, are fulfilled on time.

How to Create and Modify a Workflow

Workflows are visual lifecycles allowing users to track their position in a multi-step process and record each step taken by the team.

As in the sample canvas shown in Figure 2, Workflows divide a process into multiple steps (signified as light blue boxes in Figure 2) connected by Actions (signified as green arrows on the diagram). In this Workflow example, progress has advanced to the “Application Submitted” step, as indicated by the heavy green outline around that box. Every record with a Workflow has its current step listed in the entity view.

Each step’s available Workflow Actions appear beneath the header as blue buttons (Figure 1). These buttons indicate that a certain step has been completed either on or off Locus Platform. The user advances the Workflow forward or in some cases backward, indicating that further revisions are needed.

Workflow Actions can also trigger notifications and changes to fields in the record. These can be programmed by certain users with the Locus Platform Configuration Workbench.

All steps and the actions taken by each authorized user are logged with the workflow (Figure 3).

Creating and Configuring Workflows

Workflows are available to all Locus Platform users, and customers with the Configuration License can also access the Configuration Workbench to create their own Workflows from scratch.

Workflows are created by adding Workflow Steps and Actions to a canvas. When adding a Workflow Step, you can limit the users who have access to the step or set notifications that users should receive upon its completion. You can also create an “Execution Step,” which can be triggered by internal logic created in the Execution Logic tab.

After adding a step to the canvas, you can create an action by clicking the purple square on the step and dragging your mouse to another step. A window will appear requesting a name for the action.

Using Java scripting knowledge, Workflow Steps can mark fields as required/read-only or complete various tasks from the Rules tab in an Entity’s settings. By combining Workflows with programming, entities can become visual and intuitive, automatically completing certain steps or directing the user’s attention to the next requirement of the record.

A well-designed Workflow should operate like a relay race, with the baton passing to new users with each step. These users will complete their section of the record and then move the process forward with an action button, immediately notifying users that the record is ready for their input. If users discover that a prior step wasn’t completed to satisfaction, they can move to the last Workflow step and request the necessary changes.

Workflows allow for enhanced security and customization for entity records. While present in the OOB Task and Compliance Management application, a Configuration Workbench License allows organizations to develop original Workflows for their unique needs.
Reach out to our product specialists today to learn how you can use Workflows to step up your Compliance processes and tracking.