[Yanel-dev] Scheduler (valid-from-to) and Workflow

[Simone Gerber]

Hi

Michael Wechner wrote:
> Hi
> 
> We recently discussed internally the relationship between scheduling
> tasks and workflow. We identified several cases which I think are worth
> discussing:
> 
> 
> 1) For example let's assume we have a simple
> workflow with following transitions:
> 
>  submit for review: draft - review
>  approve and publish: review - approved/live
> 
> and let's assume an editor can submit an article for review, but cannot
> approve/publish the article, then I would assume
> that this editor also cannot schedule the publish task, right?
> 
> Hence I think the general rule should be that a person scheduling tasks
> can only schedule tasks which are feasible for this person otherwise.
> 
> Now the problem is for example with setting valid-from and valid-to
> dates, because these are similar to scheduling tasks, which means
> a person which is not allowed to publish or de-activate a story should
> also not be able to set valid-from and valid-to dates.

Why do you think scheduling should dominate the workflow?
I think it is not that much a qustion of permissions a user has, but
again one of usability and help users to avoid mistakes. Beccause
even if you have all permissions to publish content, you might have
forgotten that you left some article in the state of a draft.
Therefor I would say the operation of approving any content is
essential for a CMS and it should be made as clear as possible which
content is published/ready for publishing and which is in a draft
condition.

I suggest a different approach, you culd call it WORKFLOW before
SCHEDULE. Everybody wth writing permissions is able to set valid
from...to dates, but content will only be automatically published if
its workflow status is set on approved or published.

I am not sure if I forgot some disadvantages of a solution in which
workflow (1) and scheduling(2) have a clear order.
> 
> WDYT?
> 
> 2) Another problem might be a person which is allowed to publish and
> de-activate and let's assume there is a workflow transition which
> allows to go directly from draft to approved/live. Now if this person
> sets the valid-from date and the article is still in draft state it seems
> to me logical that the scheduler automatically publishes this article,
> but the problem can occur that in between another person (which has no
> publish rights) is changing the article and hence the changed draft
> would go live instead the intended one.

See above.

> 
> WDYT?
> 
> 3) The current workflow allows to send notifications when a transition
> is executed, but what about "warnings" ahead of executions by the
> scheduler. For example saying: "Btw your article will be published
> tomorrow morning at 8am CET. Do you still want this to happen (because
> it has been modified since you scheduled the task)?"

Notifications are a very good idea for automatic tasks.


A NOTIFICATION should inform the user that some content will be
published soon (as you described above) whereas I think it should be
configurable how long ahead of publishing of article the user gets
an email (1 day, 2 days etc.)

I would send a NOTIFICATION when some content with a valid from...to
date is published, saying something like: The article xy has been
published. According to the set valid from...to dates it went live
on date/time and will be archived on date/time.

Furthermore a WARNING message should be sent if some content has a
valid from...date, but its workflow status is not approved or
published, saying something like:
The article xy is scheduled to go live tomorrow (configurable). The
operation will not be executed because the  workflow status is not
set on approved/published. Please change either the workflow status
or the scheduled publishing date of the article: (link to article).
If the user does not take any action the warning message shall be
repeated 2 times folling a configurable interval.

Another NOTIFICATION should be sent when content has been
de-published: The article xy has been archived on Date/Time as
scheduled.


> 
> WDYT?
> 
> I am sure there are more cases and appreciate any feedback in order to
> figure out how we can best support the interworking between scheduler
> and workflow (and general actions).
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Michi

Regards,
Simone