Document status

Assigning a status is a way of associating a group member with a document, a task and a date. The primary objective of the document status is to formalize lifecycle stages such as creation, review and release. Using the collaboration and reporting tools of PageSeeder, the document status can eliminate much of the overheads and inaccuracies associated with managing document lifecycles using spreadsheets and email.

Configuration

The document status is configured as part of the group or project configuration. It depends on the editorial process for documents. See below for an explanation on PageSeeder’s default configuration.

Status and roles

The status that a member can set on a document workflow is based on their role within a group. For more information, see the status document. 

Status order

The document status has a natural lifecycle order. The list of workflow status values must be entered in the same order and reflect the order in which the document status is naturally changed.

For example, if the document status is to start with ‘Initiated’, then naturally progress to ‘In Progress’ before being set to ‘Complete’, the status should be entered in the following order:

1. Initiated
2. In Progress
3. Complete

PageSeeder defaults

The default document statuses in PageSeeder are based on Workflow Reference Model but have been adapted to document management and PageSeeder’s capabilities. Document workflows are configured by default to follow a basic editorial process where the status is also used to communicate who is working on a document and whether it is ready for publishing.

Default status and roles

State diagram

Status description

Natural lifecycle: Initiated → In Progress → Complete → Approved → Suspended → Terminated

Initiated (active)

The workflow for the document has been created, but no activities have been started on the document. This status is considered active.

This state is usually the initial state when the editorial process requires managers and approvers to allocate work for the document.

• Only a manager can initiate a workflow.
• The equivalent task status is ‘Open’.

In Progress (active)

Activities on this document are in progress. This usually means that the document content is still being actively worked on. Additional labels can be used to describe the nature of the activities being performed.  This status is considered active.

This might be the initial state in simple editorial workflows.

• Only a contributor or higher can indicate that they have started work on the document with this status.
• The equivalent task status is ‘Open’.

Complete (active)

Work on the document is complete and waiting for approval before publication. Any internal post-completion operations, such as the final editorial review before approval, should be conducted. When a document is marked as complete, an email notification is sent to approvers. This status is considered active.

This might be the final state in simple editorial workflows.

•  Only a contributor or higher can indicate that they have completed work on the document with this status.
• The equivalent task status is ‘Resolved’.

Approved

An approver has checked that the document no longer has any outstanding activities. This can be used to mark the document as ready for publishing.

This is a final state in the document workflow.

• Approvers can indicate that work is completed on the document with this status.
• The equivalent task status is ‘Closed’

Suspended

The workflow is quiescent and no activities are started until the process has returned to the ‘In progress’ state.

This state might be used in large editorial teams when a document cannot be considered complete and nobody actively works on this document.

Terminated

Work on the document has been stopped before its normal completion.

This is a final state in the document workflow. The equivalent task status is ‘Closed’.

Notification

Email notification is controlled by setting the Notify option to ‘silent’, ‘normal’ or ‘announce’. This defaults to ‘silent’ for workflows.

However, the following global property also determines if an email notification is sent when creating workflows in bulk:

• maxWorkflowNotifications – The maximum number of notifications when adding bulk workflows by upload, folder or search (if more than this, then none are sent).