After starting your process, you’ll be able to track the status of each action, make edits, cancel individual actions, or close or reopen the entire process as needed.
Note: You will need the Editor workspace role in order to edit a process.
If your process has content requests, learn more about monitoring content requests in a process.
If your process has certification actions, learn more about monitoring certification actions in a process.
Note: Workiva Calendars, Calendar-related features (such as using business days in processes), process templates, process monitoring charts and insights, and the process copy summary card are currently only available in some of our Financial Reporting and Financial Services solutions.
Monitor a process
From the Process tab, you can see:
- An Overview panel showing the process’s details and other insights
- Charts showing the process’s progress at a glance
- A list of the process’s actions with various details, such as each action’s Status and Due date
You can customize your view of the actions list by adding filters or using the configurable columns. Click the three-dot menu next to a column header to view the column configuration options.
From the Calendar tab, you can easily see when the process’s actions are due and track those due dates against any other calendar events that have been added via the process settings.
Note: If the process manager (the process owner who first starts the process) is removed from the workspace before the process completes, a workspace admin will need to select a new process manager and grant them owner permissions to any and all files in the process in order for the process to continue.
A workspace admin can change the process manager of a running process at any time in the process settings.
Add additional actions or groups
You can still add additional actions or groups even after your process has started.
To add an action or group from this view:
- Click Add in the toolbar.
- Select a type of action or group.
- Enter your action or group's information.
- Click Add action or Add group, and the new action or group will start according to the process's Start order (this can be found in the process settings).
Edit an action or group
If your process has content requests, learn more about editing content requests that have already started.
If your process has certification actions, learn more about editing certification actions that have already started.
Even if a process is currently in progress, you can make changes to actions or groups using the three-dot menu next to the action or group.
To edit an action or group:
- Click the three-dot menu next to the action or group.
- Select Edit action or Edit group from the menu.
If editing an action, the assignee and approver (if applicable) will receive email notifications once you save your changes.
To edit tags, see Categorize actions using tags.
Note: Editing the assignee or location will automatically select the Restart action on save checkbox. This restart is required when editing the assignee or location, but is optional for all other edits.
Restart an action
In a process that's already started, you can restart actions by clicking the three-dot menu next to the action and selecting Restart. This will notify the action’s assignees that their tasks have been restarted.
Note: You won’t be able to restart actions in a closed process.
Cancel an action
If you no longer need an action in your current process and it hasn’t been completed yet, you can cancel it by clicking the three-dot menu next to the action and selecting Cancel. This cancels the action and notifies any assignees. The canceled action will remain visible in the process status reports.
Delete an action
If you want to completely remove an action or group of actions from the process and status reports, even if the action has already been completed, you can delete it by clicking the three-dot menu next to the action or group and selecting Delete action or Delete group. If the actions are already in progress, this will cancel them and notify any assignees. Regardless of their status, the actions will be removed from the process status reports. Activities associated with the deleted actions will still remain in the process activity report.
Close a process
You can choose how you want to close the process by clicking Settings in the toolbar to open up the process settings. Under the Close process field:
- Select Automatically if you want to automatically close the process once all actions are completed or canceled (default)
- Select Manually if you want a process owner to manually close the process when they’re ready
This setting can be changed at any time even if the process has already started.
No matter which option is selected, the process owner can manually close processes even if there are still incomplete actions. This will cancel those incomplete actions and prevent new tasks from being sent out.
After a process is closed either automatically or manually, it can be reopened if needed.
Note: If you want to delete a process file that's already started from Home or Files, you’ll need to first close the process.
Note: Closing a process doesn’t reset any file permissions for tasks that were already sent out. However, if a collaborator was granted Editor permission for a content request that's already been sent, their permission level is reassigned to None.
Reopen a process
If you want to reopen a closed process so that you can continue adding or editing actions or groups, click Reopen process in the toolbar. Any actions that have already been canceled or completed will not be automatically restarted.
Monitor all processes from Home
The Processes list in Home provides a useful way to monitor the status of multiple processes at once. This list shows you all of the processes where you have at least Viewer permissions. Only processes that have been started are displayed.
You can see the following information for each process:
- Process name: The title of the process
- Created by: The user who started the process
- Started: When the process was started
- Due: The process due date
- Closed: When the process was closed
- Status: What percentage of the process’s actions are in each status category
From this list, you can click the dropdown menu next to a process to:
- Go to the process
- Send reminders
- View process activity
- Update process settings
- View permissions
Sort and filter the list of processes
You can sort and filter the list of processes to more easily find what you’re looking for:
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Sort
By default, the list is sorted beginning with the most recently started process. You can change this by clicking on a column heading to sort in ascending order. Click the heading again to sort in descending order. You can sort the list using the Process name, Started, and Due column headings.
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Filter
You can filter the list by process status by clicking the Filter icon and selecting a status.
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Search
You can more easily find a process by typing all or part of the process’s name in the search box.