DriveWorks Tutorial: Specification Flow (1 of 5) – States [VIDEO]

Specification flow in DriveWorks can be a tricky beast to understand because there are a lot of interacting elements to it. However broken down each element is very simple. To help our customers better take advantage of this functionality I am going to do a multipart series on the topic. The first step is to understand the flow, what are the elements and what do the arrows mean, and what are the differences between the titles and the names.

The default specification flow looks like this:

In this tutorial I am going to start with a blank specification flow and begin by creating the simplest possible workflow, then expand upon it explaining each element as it is added. When the workflow is deleted only the following commands are available:

States are required for a workflow and there must be at least 2 of them and one of them must be an initial state. The rest of the options here restore the default workflow or load an existing workflow from an exported one. Since two states are required for the minimum workflow they can be added now.

Start and finish are the names used to make the process clear. Notice that they are both pink. Pink is the colour for a paused state, these are states that you see when looking at the specification list. It can be changed by right clicking:

Set start to the initial state by right clicking it and checking it off. Automatic will be dealt with in a future tutorial, running states are where transitions and operations are possible and the user can interact with the form itself. In this basic workflow Finish should be a paused state and start should be the initial state and a running state.

Watch this video for a demonstration of the described functionality: