In the first step in the Complex Process Flow tutorial, an organization decides to send promotional literature to every new contact and notify the Sales department so that they may follow up once the literature has been received. The promotional literature should be sent and the Sales department notified, however, only if the individual is not associated with a company.

Outlining the Process Flow

The first step in any process flow configuration is to outline the process.

• How Many Steps?

• Does the Functionality Already Exist?

• What Data Will the Process Flow Use?

• Is Any Data Returned?

• Completing the Outline

How Many Steps?

Look closely at the business case. When new Persons records are created within Aptify, we must first determine whether that person is associated with a company. This may be done simply by noting whether the Company field on the Persons form is populated.

The next step in the process is to send the product literature (but only if the person is not associated with a company). This is implemented in Aptify by creating a new Orders record and adding an Order Line for the literature. This constitutes two steps.

The final step in the process is to send an email notification to the Sales department. This is similar to the XY Send email process flow built earlier in this tutorial, and constitutes a single step in the process flow.

Putting these steps in logical order, the process flow to build is defined as follows:

• Step 1: Determine whether to send the literature.
• Step 2: Create an Orders record for the Person.
• Step 3: Create an Order Line for the literature and save the order.
• Step 4: Send an email notification to the Sales department.

Does the Functionality Already Exist?

Let's look at the four steps:

• Step 1: Determine whether to send the literature — Aptify provides a Value Tester component that can be used to branch logic based on the value of a particular field. In this case, you could use the Value Tester to check the value of the CompanyID field. However, this tutorial uses a rule-based step to illustrate how this type of step is used.
  
  
• Step 2: Create an Orders record — A Create Orders Record process component is delivered with the standard Aptify application. This step may take advantage of this existing functionality.
  
  
• Step 3: Create an Order Lines record — A Create Order Lines Record process component is delivered with the standard Aptify application. This step may take advantage of this existing functionality.
  
  
• Step 4: Send an email notification — Making use of a previously defined process flow (the XY Send email process flow created in the first part of this tutorial) reduces the amount of work necessary. This is done by basing the step on a Sub-Process.

What Data Will the Process Flow Use?

Setting up the XY Send email process flow earlier in the tutorial generated the following list of required data elements:

• The recipient of the message
• The sender of the message
• The subject of the message
• The text of the message
• The format of the email
• The email addresses for the CC list
• The email addresses for the BCC list

Additional Data

To satisfy this business case, additional data elements are necessary. Creating an Orders record within Aptify requires the following information:

• The Ship-To person and address
• The Bill-To person and address
• The product to order

Completing the Outline

Now that the number and sequence of the process flow steps, data required, and data returned have been determined, the process flow may be set up in Aptify.