Workflow

Workflow is defined as a sequence of inter connected steps to carryout a process. In other words, it can be defined as the flow in which a work is carried out, starting from initiation to implementation.

Need for workflow for administrators managing Active Directory?

Since administrators are always burdened with enormous tasks, they delegate few incipient tasks to help desk technicians. But, again, an administrator cannot manuallycheck each and every task carried out by the help desk. To ensure he has control over every task carried out by the help desk, an administrator retains the authority of "approving" any request created by help desk. To reduce the load further, an administrator uses a reviewer to review the request sent by help desk .This further enhances the security and reduces burden on the administrator. Once the administrator has approved the task, any help desk technician can execute the task.

Jargons used in workflow

Requester: He is the person who requests for a task to be carried out.

Reviewer: Reviews the request sent by the requesters

Approver: Approves/Rejects the received request.

Executor: Executes the task that has been requested.

Workflow Configuration

Steps:

• Click Workflow tab - -> Business workflow - -> Edit workflow
• Requester is mandatory for the workflow
• Based on your need, you can decide whether or not to use "Reviewer"
• You have to choose either "Approver" or "Executor" for the workflow to function properly
• After setting up the required configuration, click Save button

Now configure the different workflow agents. First, configure the requester

You can use one of the following options to configure the requester

a) To have a help desk technician as a requester, i.e. manual requester

• Click "Requesters" button
• From, the drop down menu, choose the required help desk associate and then click " Add to requesters" button

b) To have aRobo requester, i.e. schedule the "creation of requests" so that required requests are carried out automatically on configured date and time

• Click "Robo Requesters" button
• Click icon beside "Add New Robo Requester"
• Fill in the details of the Robo requester based on your requirement and then click "Add" button

Now you can configure the other aspects of the workflow, namely reviewer, approver and executor

• Click "Workflow technicians" tab
• To configure the reviewer,
• Click the "add" button which is present beside "Reviewers" option
• From drop down menu, choose the required help desk and click "Add" button in the dialog box
• To configure the approver,
• Click the "add" button which is present beside "Approvers" option
• From drop down menu, choose the required help desk and click "Add" button in the dialog box
• To configure the Executor,
• Click the "add" button which is present beside "Approvers" option
• From drop down menu, choose the required help desk and click "Add" button in the dialog box

This completes the configuration of the workflow

Workflow in real world:

Scenario 1: User Creation using Workflow

Scenario 2: Disable Inactive User Accounts using a manual Requester

Scenario 3: Disable Inactive User Accounts using a Robo Requester