Create workflows and phases

A workflow is a collection of tasks that are associated with reviewing an assignment. These collections of tasks are called phases. To create assignments, you add documents to a phase.

You can design a workflow that contains multiple levels of phases and subphases. The phases in a workflow can be structured sequentially, in parallel with other phases, or as a combination of both.

Administrators and group leaders with permissions can create workflows and phases. For information about how to grant permissions, see Grant administrative access.

Before you start

Before you create a workflow and phase, do the following:

Create a quick code list for the phase.

A quick code is a color-coded value that is associated with a coding field. Reviewers can quickly code a document to a value by applying a quick code from a list of available quick codes.

For information about how to create a quick code list, see Work with quick codes.

Create validation criteria for the phase.

Validation criteria are the coding requirements that must be met by reviewers in order to clear, or complete, an assignment in review. Assignments can be cleared only if a phase has validation criteria.

Standard saved searches are used as the validation criteria. You can apply one set of validation criteria to a phase.

For information about how to create a saved search to use as validation criteria, see Perform an advanced search.

Tip: To make it easier for reviewers to know what to code, you can create a coding template that includes a list of the relevant items to code. For information about how to create coding templates, see Work with coding templates.

Create a workflow

To create a workflow:

On the Case Home page, under Review Setup, click Workflows.

Click Add.

In the Name box, type a unique name for the workflow.

Optionally, type a Workflow description.

Click Save.

The Phases page appears.

Next, add a phase to the workflow. For more information, see Add a phase to a workflow.

Add a phase to a workflow

A phase is a sublevel of a workflow. Phases contain the assignments that individual users review.

You can create multiple phases in a workflow.

Initially, you add phases when you create a new workflow. You can also add phases to an existing workflow at any point in the review process.

To add a phase to a workflow:

To access the Phases page, do the following:

On the Case Home page, under Review Setup, click Workflows.

Click the workflow that you want to add a phase to.

On the Phases page, click Add.

In the Phase name box, type a name for the phase. The phase name must be unique to the workflow. You can use the same phase names in different workflows.

To base the phase on an existing phase, do the following:

Select the Clone an existing phase check box.

In the Select a workflow list, select the workflow that contains the phase to copy.

In the Select a phase list, select the phase to copy.

Optionally, to prevent reviewers from accessing assignments in the phase, under Phase Status, select Locked.

Tip: If you plan to create child phases, you should change the Phase status to Locked until after you finish creating the child phases.

For more information about locking and unlocking phases, see Lock or unlock a phase.

Click Save.

The Properties page appears.

Next, set the properties for the phase. For more information, see Configure phase properties

Add a child phase to a phase

You can create multiple levels of phases and subphases to facilitate multilevel reviews by different review teams. A subphase is called a child phase. A phase that contains a child phase is called a parent phase.

Adding child phases allows you to display phases hierarchically. It also allows assignments to flow automatically from a parent phase to all of its child phases.

If a phase has two or more child phases, all child phases receive copies of assignments at the same time. Because the assignment is not deleted from the parent phase, you should create child phases before you allow reviewers to clear assignments. If assignments are already cleared, manually add the cleared assignments to the child phase.

Child phases can also contain additional levels of child phases.

To add a child phase to a phase:

To access the Phases page, do the following:

On the Case Home page, under Review Setup, click Workflows.

Click the workflow that contains the phase that you want to add a child phase to.

On the Phases page, click the Add child phase button in the row for the phase.

In the Phase name box, type a name for the child phase. The phase name must be unique to the workflow. You can use the same phase names in different workflows.

To base the child phase on an existing phase, do the following:

Select the Clone an existing phase check box.

In the Select a workflow list, select the workflow that contains the phase to copy.

In the Select a phase list, select the phase to copy.

Optionally, to prevent reviewers from accessing assignments in the phase, change the Phase status to Locked.

Tip: If you plan to create additional child phases, you should change the Phase status to Locked until after you finish creating the child phases.

For more information about locking and unlocking phases, see Lock or unlock a phase.

Click Save.

The Properties page appears.

Next, set the properties for the phase. For more information, see Configure phase properties

Configure phase properties

You define settings for a phase on the Properties page for a phase. For example, you can determine how documents are allocated into assignments, and what coding requirements must be met by reviewers in order to clear an assignment. Each phase can have its own properties.

Initially, you configure phase properties after you add a new parent phase or child phase to a workflow. You can also edit the properties of an existing phase.

Before you start, create a quick code list and a saved search to use as validation criteria. For more information, see Before you start.

To configure phase properties:

To access the phase Properties page, do the following:

On the Case Home page, under Review Setup, click Workflows.

Click the workflow that contains the phase.

Click the name of the phase.

On the Properties page, in the Phase name box, edit the name of the phase, if necessary.

Under Phase status, select one of the following:

Unlocked: Allows users to access assignments in the phase.

Locked: Prevents users from getting new assignments in the phase. Users can still access all uncleared assignments that they retrieved before the phase was locked.

In the Documents per assignment box, type the number of documents to put in each assignment. You can put a maximum of 10,000 documents in each assignment.

Under Assignment name, use the default assignment name format or select a format from the list. The default assignment name format is Short phase name, short lot name, and ID.

Under Break assignments on, select how you want to divide a document set into separate assignments.

Note: Depending on the setting that you choose, the assignment size may be slightly larger than the value that you specified for the Documents per assignment option.

Select from the following:

To keep source documents and their attachments together in the same assignment, select Families. For example, if an email document contains 15 attachments, breaking assignments on families includes all 15 attachments in the same assignment, regardless of the assignment size.

To allow source documents and their attachments to be divided into different assignments, select Documents. Optionally, select an additional field on which to break assignments.

To enable an email threading assignment to open in threaded view, select Threads. This option keeps all documents in a thread together so that a thread is not divided into multiple assignments.

For more information about email threading, see Email threading administration.

Tip: To open an email threading assignment in threaded view, users must also select the Threading option in their search preferences. For information about how to set search preferences, Set search preferences.

To prevent the same user from reviewing assignments in both a parent phase and its child phases, clear the Assign child phase assignments to the same user check box. If you clear the check box, this setting allows more than one user to review an assignment. It also prevents a user from accessing the same document in successive phases.

To add a quick code list to the phase, in the Quick code list, select a quick code list. For information about how to create a quick code list, see Work with quick codes.

To add validation criteria to the phase, do the following:

Note: Users can only clear assignments if the phase has validation criteria.

Click the Set validation criteria button.

Select the saved search that you want to use as the validation criteria. For information about how to create a saved search, see Perform an advanced search.

Note: If you want to temporarily remove the validation criteria, select the No criteria set check box. For example, you can temporarily remove the validation criteria while you create a new saved search.

Click OK.

Click Save.

Next steps

After you create a workflow and phase, do the following:

Assign teams to the phase. For more information, see Add teams to a phase.

Optionally, create additional phases or child phases for the different stages of the review. For more information about how to create phases, see Add a phase to a workflow and Add a child phase to a phase. For information about how to change the priority of phases, see Adjust phase priorities.