Testing Workflow

Owned by Jordan Gardiner
May 20, 2024
3 min read

The Workflow Simulator quickly helps you identify any issues in each step of your workflow, including who you’re routing approvals to, custom email notifications, and parallel branch logic. The Workflow Simulator will quickly help you catch small errors, improving the quality and launch-time of every future process.

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To launch the Workflow Simulator, switch the toggle button at the top center of the Workflow Builder screen from “Design” to “Test.”

 

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The workflow simulator screen will show on the right side of your screen. To begin the workflow testing process, select Run Test.

The Workflow Simulator will proceed to test each workflow step:

Approvals

  • Approval steps will show the email notification the assigned user would receive as part of the workflow process. Verify the Current User and To: email address matches the expected recipient.

    You will be given the chance to interact with the email as the user would by clicking ‘Begin Review’. Alternatively, you can click next to proceed to the next approval view in Kuali.

The Workflow Simulator only works with approvals that are set up to accept the first approver. Approvals designed where a percentage of approvers must respond is not supported at this time. 

Acknowledge

  • Acknowledge steps are handled very similarly to approval steps. You will be shown the step email notification and be able to verify the recipient is correct. Following, you can review and acknowledge the step.

Notifications

  • Email notifications will mirror the notification designated for the selected recipient. Verify the correct recipient, subject, email copy, and custom variables are correct.

Branch Steps

  • Route testing supports simulating different workflow routes to ensure the logic and steps within each route are error-free. Complete the form with information specific to a route in your workflow.  When testing parallel branches, the simulator will route the testing scenario based upon the information completed in the submitted form. 

When testing different routes, the route currently being tested will be highlighted at the top of the Simulator.

Integrations

  • The Workflow Simulator will test the integration activity to confirm data is routing to the correct location and updating as expected.

  • As a note, this is an advanced component that is helpful for individuals with some familiarity with API structure and the integration design.

  • When testing, the Simulator will show the URL the document will be sent to during the step.

  • You may review the JSON, if desired, to validate the code of the information being sent is as expected for the integration to function.

Workflow Status

 

The Workflow status allows you to see where a form is at during the workflow process. You are able to see what step a document is on, comments that were made by reviewers, and you can even link to a step in the Workflow Builder to see the configuration details. The status of a simulated document is also available when the simulation is complete via the 'View the Status Log' option on the Workflow Completed screen.