Administering K2 - Summary and Challenge Steps

The K2 Management site contains tools for administering the K2 environment, server permissions, Out of Office settings, errors and process management, to name a few. This site will typically be accessed by users that are K2 administrators. The K2 Workspace is designed to give each user a platform for managing workflows tasks assigned to them, starting new process instances, configuring their Out of Office settings and viewing their workflow reports.

K2 Management Site
The K2 Management site is the primary location for administering deployed processes and managing environmental settings. The following is a summary of the Administering K2 tutorial:

• Package and Deployment: In this section, you downloaded and deployed the Workflow Administration Sample process using the K2 Package and Deployment tool. The K2 Package and Deployment tool is primarily used to package applications from one environment and deploy them to another environment. For example, you might build an application on a development server, then package and deploy it to a production server. You are able to deploy forms, views, SmartObjects, workflows and other related K2 artifacts using this tool.
• Managing Processes and Process Instances: In this section, you started a number process instances directly from the K2 Management site. This allows you to test and troubleshoot workflows without having to open and submit forms. You also started, stopped and deleted instances. Stopping an instance pauses, or suspends it, until it is restarted. Deleting an instance will completely remove the process instance from K2. In this section, you also used the Go To Activity option to send a workflow to a different step. This is quite useful for sending workflows back in time. For example, if a user needs adjust their form entry, you can send the workflow back to the step they were working on. K2 will have saved the form content and the user can simply open the form and resume.
• Managing Task Lists: A Task List is simply a list of tasks assigned to a user. The task itself is referred to as a task list item. You can redirect task list items from one user to another. A common scenario is the destination user assigned a task is not available and the form originator would like to redirect the task to another user so that the workflow can keep moving along. With the Out of Office feature, both K2 administrators and users themselves can set up and manage alternative users to share their task list items with. Out of Office does not remove the task from the original destination user, instead it makes a copy for the alternative user. Aside from users being literally out of the office, another common use for this feature is for executives to forward their task list items to an assistant, again to keep the workflow process moving.
• Managing Permissions: Typically speaking, the K2 administrator will manage server rights and workflow rights. The most common permission setting in Server Rights is the export option, which allows users to publish (or deploy) workflows. Some organizations limit the number of users that can deploy workflows as a quality control measure. Other organizations allow all of their users to build and deploy workflows as they need to. You learned that you must grant users at least start rights for them to be able to start a workflow. View rights are also a common option and allow the user to run reports against the workflow.

If you would like to further test the knowledge you gained while working through this tutorial, continue on to the following challenge exercises.

Challenge 1: Filter task list items

Challenge 1 Task

1. Filter the task list items so that you are viewing only Jonno's tasks.
2. Filter the task list items so that you are viewing only the 'Normal Execution' process instances.
3. Do not filter the task list items and instead, view all task list items.

Challenge 1 Solution

Filter the task list items so that you are viewing only Jonno's tasks.

1. In the K2 Management site, click the Task List option found under the Users node.
2. In the central pane, locate the Destination filter and enter jonno. Click the spyglass or Search button located near the middle of the screen on the right-hand side. There should be one task displayed in the results pane (TaskRedirect).

Filter the task list items so that you are viewing tasks that contain 'Normal Execution' in the process instance name.

1. Highlight and delete the entry you just made in the destination filter. In the Folio filter, enter normal, then click the Search button. There should be two tasks displayed in the results pane (Normal Execution 1 and Normal Execution 2)

 Do not filter the task list items and instead, view all of the task list items.

1. Delete the entry you just made in the Folio filter. Click the Search button without entering any filters. There should be at least four tasks displayed in the results pane. (TaskRedirect, StartStop, Normal Execution1 and Normal Execution2)

Challenge 2: Remove permissions for domain users and add start rights for the Finance group

Challenge 2 Task

1. Remove the permissions for the Domain Users in the Workflow Administration Sample process. Add start permissions for the Finance group.

Challenge 2 Solution

1. Navigate to the Workflow Projects screen. (Workflow Server > Workflows) Click to highlight the Workflow Administration Sample process, then click the Rights button.
2. Click to highlight the Domain Users group, then click Remove.
3. Click Add. Confirm the Label is set to K2, then change the Search scope from 'All' to Groups. Search for finance.
4. Assign the Finance group start rights.