Article last updated on the 10th of April, 2024.
Contents
1. Introduction
Note that the examples given in this article are based on a specified case and does not cover all possible implementations of the concept of transmittals. Your requirements for the processes and functionalities may vary form the given case and examples (e.g., the usage of staging for transmittals).
A transmittal is a package of documents, images, and other items meant to be shared with other parties.
A typical example is a package of project related documents, such as drawings, bid materials, and/or calculations, which must be sent to another party.
Since transmittals often consist of several documents collected from a project, it is ideal to use a business module containing entities with sites on which these can be stored.
In this article, we give an example of how the concept of transmittals can be implemented into your WorkPoint solution using WorkPoint Automate.
For demonstration purposes, we have created the following business module hierarchy:
-
Companies
-
Projects
- Transmittals
-
Projects
Projects are always related to a specific company, and transmittals are always related to a specific project.
When we create a new transmittal for a project, we want to be able to fill in some meta data for the transmittal such as a title, a responsible person, and a recipient.
We also want to be able to search for and select one or more documents to send from the parent project to the newly created transmittal.
Once we have a transmittal with a set of documents, we want to be able to create a so-called coversheet - a document which contains information about the transmittal as well as a list of documents contained within the transmittal.
For this demonstration, we have created a Master Site for the Transmittals module which looks like the following:
As we can see from the image, we have the following navigation elements on the Master Site:
- Overview: This is the front page of the transmittal, i.e. the page which is shown in the image.
- Package: The document library on the transmittal site. All documents meant to be sent with the transmittal are stored here.
- Checklist: A list containing task items so that users can keep track of tasks associated with the transmittal.
During this article, we will create three processes which in combination implements the concept of transmittals in our WorkPoint solution:
- New Transmittal: This process allows us to create a new transmittal and optionally send documents from the project to it, all in a single process.
- Send documents to transmittal: This process allows us to select one or more documents from a project's Documents library, and send them to a chosen transmittal.
- Create coversheet: This process creates a coversheet for a transmittal, based on a document template from our Template Library.
2. Process configurations
In the following sections, we will create the previously mentioned WorkPoint Automate processes.
2.1. New Transmittal
The "New transmittal" process will make use of the following 4 steps (in the following order):
- Entity form
- Search for item in list
- Create entity
- Converts selected Documents to PDFs
The Entity form has the following General settings:
Note that we title the step "Transmittal information". This is the name of the step displayed to the user when the process is run. We have also added a description for users to read when they encounter this step in the process.
The settings in the "Options" tab are configured as follows:
Since we are created a new entity on the Transmittals business module, we select this in the "Business module" field. For Content type, we select "Item", as this module does not make use of staging. If your Transmittals module use staging, a good idea is to select the start stage in this field. We also select to not show the content type selector in the form - since we are not using staging and the only available content types on the module is "Item" and "Folder", there is no need for the selector.
The next thing we will configure for this step is the "Project" field on the form. Just to make the form as simple for users as possible, we will make sure that the "Project" field, which is used to relate the transmittal being created to a specific project, is filled in automatically. As this process is run from a project, we will just fill the "Project" field with the project we are currently on. In the "Fields" tab, we set the following adaptive expression for the "Value" property of the "Project" field:
{LookupId:Entity.ID, LookupValue: Entity.Title}In addition, we make sure the "Project" field is set to "Read-Only". This makes sure users cannot change the value in the field.
The next step we add is the "Search for item in list" step.
The General settings for this step is configured as follows:
Note here that we title the step "Select document(s) to send to transmittal", and we also add a fitting description for what users can use this step for.
The settings in the "Options" tab are configured as follows:
We want to be able to search for documents in the "Documents" library on the project we are currently located on. We therefore select the "Projects" module, "Entity.ID" from the context, and then the "Documents" library. We also select to use the "All documents" view on the Documents library by default. We enable the view selector so that users can select a different view to use if they want to, and we also enable the ability for users to select multiple documents in the form.
Next, we add the "Create entity" step.
The General settings for this step is configured as follows:
We title the Create entity step "Create transmittal", and add a fitting description. Different from the previous two step is also that we make use of a step input, where we add the output from the "Transmittal information" form, which is the Entity form. We do this so that the transmittal we create uses the meta data we typed in in the first step of the process.
The settings in the "Options" tab are configured as follows:
As previously mentioned, we want to create the new entity on the Transmittals business module. We therefore select this module in the "Business module" field. In the "Create site behavior" field, we select "Synchronous". Synchronous means that the site for the new entity needs to fully created and ready before the process continues on to the next and final step. The other options in this field are "Asynchronous" where the site creation job is started when we select to continue from this step, but the job is run in the background while we can keep working with subsequent steps, and "Skip" which will create the entity for us, but omit to create a site for the entity.
Since the next step is going to be responsible for sending the documents we selected in the previous step to the new entity, there needs to be a site for the entity to put the documents on. Therefore it is important to make sure that the site is created before we try to add documents to it, and that is the reason for selecting Synchronous.
Next we add the final step to the process, the "Converts selected Documents to PDFs" step.
The General settings for this step are configured as follows:
We title the step "Save documents on transmittal" even though what it does is technically to take the documents we selected in the second step of the process, convert them to PDFs and then saving them in a location. This is to make the functionality of the step in context to the entire process more understandable to the user. Here we also select the output from the "Select document(s) to send to send to transmittal" step in the Step Input field.
The settings in the "Options" tab are configured as follows:
The first four fields in the options are related to where we want to store the documents we are creating. In this instance, we select the "Package" library on the site of the newly created entity on the Transmittals module. This entity was just created in the previous step of the process. In this instance we do not select a folder to put the documents in, but if we knew there was a folder in the Package library, we could type the name of the folder in the "Destination Folder" field to put the documents in there.
Next, we select what should happen if a document with the same name as the document being created already exists in the destination. In this case we select the "Rename" option, which will put a numerical suffix on the title of the document being created, resulting in a document titled e.g., "transmittal document (1)".
We then select which PDF format to save the documents as. In this case, we select "PDF_v_1_3".
Lastly we select to add the latest version of the source document(s) to the newly created document(s) on the transmittal.
The process is now complete, and we can save it, publish it.
Next, on the root of the Projects module we set up the following My Tools button to execute the process:
Lastly, in the "Finish" settings for the process, we add a custom button called "Go to transmittal" which we link up with the wpSite property of the newly created transmittal entity. Once the process completes, this button will make it possible for the user to go directly to the new transmittal. It is configured as follows:
We can now move on to the next process.
2.2. Send documents to transmittal
The previous process we created makes it possible to create a new transmittal and send documents from the current project to it in one process.
Now we will create a process which makes it possible to, from a Documents library on a project, select one or more documents, and run a process which sends those documents to an existing transmittal. This process can be used if a transmittal was previously created, but documents need to be added later.
This process will use the following steps (in order):
- Search entity form
- Converts selected Documents to PDFs
The general settings for the first step, the Search entity form step, are configured as follows:
We title the step "Select transmittal" because we use this step to select which transmittal to send the selected documents to. We also add a fitting description so that users know what to do when they are presented with this step when they run the process.
The next and final step is the "Converts selected Documents to PDFs" step, which has the following general settings:
We title the step "Send document(s) to transmittal" and in the Step Input field, we use the "Selected Items" option. This makes it so that the documents being converted to PDF and stored somewhere by this step are the documents selected in the library from where this process is run.
The settings in the "Options" tab are configured as follows:
The first four fields in the options are related to where we want to store the documents from the current project. In this instance, we select the "Package" library on the site of the transmittal we selected in the first step. In this instance we do not select a folder to put the documents in, but if we knew there was a folder in the Package library, we could type the name of the folder in the "Destination Folder" field to put the documents in there.
Next, we select what should happen if a document with the same name as the document being sent already exists in the destination transmittal. In this case we select the "Rename" option, which will put a numerical suffix on the title of the document being created, resulting in a document titled e.g., "transmittal document (1)".
We then select which PDF format to save the documents as. In this case, we select "PDF_v_1_3".
Lastly we select to add the latest version of the source document(s) to the newly created document(s) on the transmittal.
The process is now complete, and we can save it, publish it, and move on to the next process.
Next, on the Documents library on the Projects module, we set up the following button to execute the process:
We can now move on to the next process.
2.3. Create coversheet
The Create coversheet process is responsible for creating a document from a template, containing information about the transmittal itself, as well as all the documents contained in the Package library.
For the Create coversheet process, we only need a single step: a Create item step.
The general settings for this step are configured as follows:
We title the step "Create coversheet".
The settings in the "Options" tab are configured as follows:
In the options we select where to create the coversheet document. In this instance we want to create the coversheet on the current transmittal site, inside the "Package" library using the "Document" content type. We do not want to place it in a sub-folder, so we leave the "Folder" field blank.
Next, in the "Template" tab, we set the following options:
Here, we need to let the process know which template from which template library to base the coversheet document on. We select our standard Template Library, and in this instance, the ID of the coversheet template we have created is 10. This ensure that the coversheet being created is based on the coversheet document template from our template library.
For reference, the following image shows the template configured for this example:
Next, we set the following "Start" settings for the process:
In this instance, we select to skip the start step. This makes it so that, once the process opens, users do not need to press a button to start the creation of the coversheet. It just executes the step when the process is started.
Next, we set the following options in the "Finish" settings for the process:
In this instance, we select to reload the page when the user closes the process once it is completed. This is because otherwise, users may be confused when they close the process and do not see their new coversheet. As libraries may not automatically update their displayed content, we reload the page so that we can be sure the new coversheet is visible.
This completes the configuration of the "Create coversheet" process, and we can now save and publish it.
Next, on the Transmittals business module, we configure the following button to execute the Create coversheet process:
This concludes the configuration of all the processes in this demonstration case.
We can now move on to demonstrate a couple of use cases.
3. Use cases
In this section, we will demonstrate the usage of the processes configured in the previous section.
We will start by creating a new transmittal.
3.1. Creating a new transmittal
In this demonstration, from inside a project, we will create a new transmittal and send a couple of documents along with it:
- On a project, we click "All actions", followed by "New" and "New transmittal".
This opens the New Transmittal process:
- In the first form, we type in meta data for our new transmittal, e.g., title, recipient, category and responsible. Note here that the "Project" field is automatically filled with the project we are creating the transmittal from.
- To proceed to the next step, we click "Continue".
- In the next step, we can select documents from the project we are currently on. The documents we select here will be sent to the transmittal we are about to create.
- To proceed to the next step, we again click "Continue".
The process now creates the transmittal for us:
Immediately after creating the transmittal, the process moves on to save the selected documents on the transmittal:
Once the process is completed, the "Finish" step is shown:
- On the Finish step, we see the "Go to transmittal" button we configured. We can click this button to go directly to the newly created transmittal:
Note that we can see that the documents we selected in the second step of the process have indeed been copied over to the transmittal.
3.2. Sending documents from project to transmittal
In this demonstration, from the Documents library on a project, we will select a document and use the process we configured to send that document to a transmittal which we select:
- In the Documents library on the project "Project Blue", we select the "Data collection.docx" document.
- With the document selected, we click the three ellipses and select "Send to...".
- In the pop-up window, we select to run the "Send document(s) to transmittal" process.
- In the next step, we select the transmittal we want to send the selected document to. In this case, we only have one transmittal, the "December transmittal", so we select that one.
- To proceed, we click "Continue".
The process now copies the document over to the December transmittal:
Once the process is complete, we can click the "Close" button and go to the transmittal and see if the document was correctly moved over:
In the image above, we can see that the document was correctly copied and now exists on the December transmittal.
3.3. Creating a coversheet for transmittal
In this demonstration, we will use the "Create coversheet" process to create a coversheet document for the December transmittal:
- On the December transmittal site, in the My Tools panel, we click the "Create coversheet" button to run the process.
Once this process is started, it will immediately start creating the coversheet:
Once the process is completed, we can click the "Close" button:
When we click the "Close" button, the process is automatically reload the page, so that we can see the coversheet document:
If we open the coversheet document, we can see that we have information about the transmittal itself, along with information about all the documents on the transmittal:
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