States

Overview

States act like milestones in your workflow – key stages of your process where something has to happen.

States are always implemented with the {state} macro. There must be at least one state in every workflow.

Example

Let's assume we've got a really simple content production process where content is edited, then it goes through a review, and if the review is approved the content is published.

{workflow:name=Three states}
   {state:Editing}
   {state}
   {state:Review}
   {state}
   {state:Publish}
   {state}
{workflow}

The boxes in the diagram above are the states, and the lines between them are Transitions.

Transitions

States can handle several common Transitions directly, namely:

submit – a direct transition to one state
updated – an automatic transition which occurs when content is edited
approved and rejected – transitions triggered by completion of Reviews
expired – triggered when a state expires – see Expiry Dates
completed – triggered when the last remaining task is completed – see Tasks

See: Transitions

Reviews

You can add Reviews to states. When the workflow enters the state, the Workflow Popup will display options for Content reviews.

Reviewers must decide whether to approve or reject the content, and once they are in agreement the state will transition to the approved or rejected state as applicable.

See: Reviews

Tasks

Tasks can be created automatically when a workflow enters a state, and states can automatically transition when tasks are completed.

In the example, a task to Check links is created when entering the Review state, and when that task is completed a transition will occur to the Publish state.

{workflow:name=Tasks}
   {state:Editing}
   {state}
   {state:Review|completed=Publish}
      {task:Check links}
   {state}
   {state:Publish}
   {state}
{workflow}

See: Tasks

Note that tasks cannot be created this way in the initial state (the Editing state in our example).

For the task to be created, the state must be transitioned to from another state; it must be entered. When a workflow is first applied to content, the initial state is not entered and thus any tasks it contains won't be created.

Publishing

States can be designated as a "final", Published state for the content.

When using this feature, called Same-space publishing, View-only users will only see the most recently published version of content.

See: Publishing

Expiry dates

States can be given expiry dates. There are many uses for this, but one of the most interesting is to trigger periodical reviews of published content:

It's a really simple way to ensure that documentation doesn't go stale.

See: Expiry Dates, State expiry date

Notifications

By default, page watchers will only be notified if a state expires.

Additional notifications can be added if desired – see Notifications.

Macros

Content by label

There is no content with the specified labels

Events

State transitions and expiry generate Events, which can be used to Trigger Actions.

statechanged
pagestatechanged
newsstatechanged
stateexpired

App configuration

Setting	Where	Notes
State's Task Behaviour	Configuration - Global	Should incomplete tasks be carried over to the next state during transitions?
State Expired Notification	Notifications - Global Notifications - Space Tools	Should page watchers receive a notification when a state expires?

Examples