Process Example: Create Entity

We begin in the Process Builder tool inside the WorkPoint Administration:

1. To create a new process, we click the "New" button.

2. In the "Create new" dialog, we select to start from scratch. Using this option we given a clean slate to create our process.

3. In the next dialog, we provide the new process with a title. In this example, we title the process "New Project".
4. Next, we select the Process type. Since the process will require the user to provide some data input, we select the "User Process" option. You can read more about the difference between System Processes and User Processes in this article.
5. Next, we select which group to place the process in. Groups are created as terms on the Site level term set "WorkPoint365 Process Groups". In this example, we have created a term called "Entity Processes" which can be used as a group for all processes related to entity creation and handling.
6. To finish the setup and begin working on the process, we click the "Begin" button.

We  can now begin adding steps to our Create Project process:

7. To add a new step to the process, we click the "Add new step" button.

8. At this point, we will add the first step of our process: the Entity Form step. We can search for it in the search bar.
9. Next, we select the "Entity form" step.
10. A panel appears, displaying some information about the step and what it can be used for. This can be useful if you are unsure which steps to use and in what context.
11. To add the Entity form step to our process, we click the "Add step" button.

The Entity form step is now added to the process:

12. If the Step Properties panel does not open by itself, you can open it by clicking the step  in the process chain.
13. We need to add some information to some of the Entity form properties, so we open the "Options" tab in the Step Properties panel.
14. In the "Business module" field, we select the Projects business module. In the "Content type (stage)" field, we select which stage we want newly created projects to begin in. In this case, we select the "Idea" stage.
15. In the "Enable content type (stage) selection" field, we can select whether the user of the process should be able to select a different starting stage in a drop down menu on the form.

We can now proceed by adding the final step of the process: the Create entity step:

16. To add a new step to our process, we click the "Add a step" button.

17. Since we want to add the "Create entity" step, we open the Entity tab and select the "Create entity" step.
18. To add the step to the process, we click the "Add step" button.

We can now set up the General settings of the Create entity step:

19. The previous step in the process (the Entity form step) allows the user to input meta data for our new project. This meta is stored in the context of the process and we can now use this data in our Create entity step to create a new project with the meta data provided. To do this, we need to tell the Create entity step to use the output from the Entity form step as input. In the "Step Input" field we therefore select "Output from Entity form".

Next, we move on to the "Options" tab of the step:

19. In the "Business module" field, we select on which business module the entity should be created in. In this case, we want to create projects, so we select our "Projects" module.
20. In the "Create site behaviour" field, we can select the site creation behaviour used for this process. In this example, we select the "Asynchronous" option. The available options are:
    • Synchronous: Creation of the entity site will pause progress of the form until finished.
    • Asynchronous: Once the entity site creation job is started, the user can proceed to the next step immediately while the site creation is running in the background.
    • Skip: The entity site creation job is skipped and no site will be created.
21. In the "Stage model" field, we select the "Default Stage Model". This is the standard default stage model that comes with the WorkPoint provided business module template for Projects business modules. If you have other stage models defined for your business module, you can select between them here.
22. In the "Stage" field, we can select a "Start" or "StartAndStandard" stage from the selected stage model. Alternatively, we can reference a stage (or content type id), as we have done here. "EntityForm.ContentTypeId" is a reference to the stage selected on the Entity form step, and guarantees that the new project will be created using the stage that the user selects in the Entity form.

That's all we need to set up in the process. We can now save it:

23. If you simply want to save the process and exit, you can click the "Save as draft & Exit" button. In this example we also want to publish the process after we save it, so we click the "Save as draft" button (only published processes can be run in WorkPoint).
24. Note that each draft save increments the minor version number of the process.

Next, we publish the process:

25. To publish the process, we click the "Publish" button.

Each publication of a process resets the minor version number and increments the major version number by 1 and shows as "PUBLISHED":

In this section, we will create a My Tools button to run our New Project process.

26. In the side panel of the WorkPoint Administration, we expand the "User Experience" tab and select "My Tools".

27. We create the new My Tools button in the "New" button group.
28. The title of the button is set to "New Project".
29. We select a suitable icon for the button, in this case the "Project" icon.
30. For "Type" we select "User Process". This enables us to select among our configured User Processes which process should run when the button is clicked.
31. In the "Process" selector, we select the "New Project" process we created earlier.
32. To save the button configuration, we click the "Save" button.

In order to use the new button, we first need to clear the WorkPoint 365 browser cache:

33. On the WorkPoint solution, we click the "Home" icon.

34. In the bottom of the side panel, we click "Need help?"
35. Next, we click the "Clear WorkPoint 365 browser cache" button.

The page no reloads, and the new My Tools button is available for use.