Getting started

A key task in WorkZone Process is handling and tracking of information in a process.

Click to learn more:

You can start a new process from Outlook or from WorkZone Client.

See Start a new process.

When a process is started, the owner of the process can add or remove documents attached to the process or add or remove the actors involved.

See Manage documents and actors on a task.

If your organization is working with versioning of documents, then you can enable or disable versioning for individual documents. From WorkZone for Office you can view and compare document versions.

For more information about how to set up and work with document versioning, see Work with document versions in the WorkZone for Office User Guide.

When you receive a task, you can click to open the document for viewing or editing.

See View or edit a document in a task.

Access

Whether or not you are able to see the contents of a document or make changes to the contents is determined by the setup of access rights in WorkZone Client. This setup determines who can read and write to documents and who can access cases and contacts.

For more information about access rights, see About access rights in the WorkZone Client User Guide.

Actors

Various roles are involved in the document process tasks such as the process owner and the people who receive tasks.

See Work with tasks.


Process flows

You can start a process from WorkZone Client or directly from Microsoft Outlook when you receive information that you want to handle in, for example, a hearing, a submission, or a distribution.

Processes in WorkZone Process are either parallel or sequential.

  • The parallel flow: There is no particular order in which actors in a process should respond. They can respond in parallel. A hearing is a parallel flow.
  • The sequential flow: Actors in the process should respond in a fixed order one after the other. A submission is a sequential flow.

Click to learn more about the process types:

A hearing is based on a parallel flow and a hearing process is applied to for example include a series of interested parties in a planning project to ensure that everyone get a chance to provide feedback.

See About hearings.

A submission is based on a sequential flow and the submission process type is available with a basis and an extended set of options to navigate the flow.

See About submissions (basis) and About submissions (extended).

The purpose of a distribution process is to assign ownership of a case and find contributors. The concept of sequential or parallel does not apply to distributions.

See About distributions.


Get an overview

The Processes overview provides a snapshot of the state of all ongoing and closed processes. Processes are automatically documented, and you can use the Processes overview to track the state of your own work tasks and work tasks in your organization.

For more information, see About the Process Views.