Concept: Step Conditions

Initiation

steps and

Action

steps can have a validation condition. The

Maintain Step Conditions

related action allows you to set 1 of these severities on a validation condition:

Warning
: When any condition rule is true, Workday displays the error and you can still continue to move to the next business process step even if there are errors in the step.
Critical
: When any condition rule is true, the step is blocked from exiting. You won't be able to continue to the next business process step until validation errors are fixed. Workday sets the validation condition to
Critical
by default.

When you configure a validation condition, the

Validation

column in the business process definition displays the name of the condition rule and whether it's

Critical

or a

Warning

.

When all conditions are false, the step will exit and the process will continue.

Validation conditions are only available on

Initiation

steps when the ability to revise the associated business process is built into the Workday-delivered business process or step. This ability is required to send the step back to the user's My Tasks when a validation condition is encountered.

To add a validation condition to an

Action

step, you must add the validation condition directly to the

Initiation

step of the business process definition associated with that

Action

step.

On an

Action

step, you can enable the

Enable Validation Conditions for Add Approvers

check box on the

Maintain Step Conditions

task. When you select the

Enable Validation Conditions for Add Approvers

check box on the

Action

step, and if any of the validation conditions are true, Workday triggers validation messages when a reviewer adds approvers and clicks

Approve and Send to Approvers

on the My Tasks item. When the validation condition is a:

Critical
severity, Workday won't add additional approvers and the event has a status of
Saved for Later
. The reviewer won't be able to add approvers to the
Action
step until the reviewer fixes the validation errors. Once the reviewer corrects the data and clicks
Approve and Send to Approvers
, Workday re-evaluates the validation condition. If the validation condition is false, Workday continues to add additional approvers to the step.
Warning
severity, Workday displays the warning message and the reviewer can still proceed to add approvers to the
Action
step. When the warning message triggers, the reviewer would need to add the approver again and click
Approve and Send to Approvers
. Workday then adds the additional approver to the step and the workflow continues.

When you select the

Enable Validation Conditions for Additional Approvers

check box on an

Action

step that's already in-progress, Workday won't trigger validation conditions on the step when a reviewer adds additional approvers on the step.

To determine if a business process or step can be revised, run the

Business Process Configuration Options

report:

If the
Approval Options
column includes
Send Back
, the business process can be revised, and you can configure a validation condition on the
Initiation
step.
If the
Options on Save
column in the
Allowed Actions
section includes
Send Back
, the step can be revised, and you can configure a validation condition on that step.

Roles with permission to initiate a business process that uses a defined template (such as

Change Job

) must also have View All permission on the business process security policy to ensure that Workday evaluates validation conditions.

All types of steps can have an entry condition, except

Initiation

steps. If the condition is true, the step runs. If the condition is false, the step is skipped.

Some business process definition steps have Workday-supplied entry conditions for

Action

steps, which you can’t edit. However, you can specify additional entry conditions for these steps. Both the Workday conditions and your conditions are evaluated when the business process runs. Workday skips any step that doesn’t satisfy all the entry conditions.

When a web service automates a business process, such as in an EIB spreadsheet upload, Workday automatically skips

Approval

steps, but continues to evaluate entry condition rules for

Integration

steps,

Service

steps, and

Action

steps that initiate sub-events.

Only

Approval Chain

and

Consolidated Approval Chain

steps can have a while-running condition.

This condition works like an entry condition for each approval level in the chain. It compares the next approver to a value and if the condition is true, the step routes to that approval level. If the condition is false, it skips the current approval level and moves on to evaluate the next approval level in the chain.

When you use an

Approval Chain

or

Consolidated Approval Chain

step type for a worker with multiple managers for a single position, Workday randomly selects a person in a level and checks the while-running condition to see if that person meets the condition. If the person in the level meets the condition, the step routes to them. However, if the randomly selected person doesn't meet the condition, Workday marks everyone in that level as not required and proceeds to the next level. Before moving to the next level, Workday checks the exit condition. In scenarios where the exit condition isn't met yet, Workday continues to move up the chain. If 1 person in the previous step meets the exit condition, the approval chain exits.

Workday recommends that you don't configure a while-running condition when there are multiple managers in an approval chain.

You can use calculated fields in a while-running condition rule to determine the next approver in the approval chain when in a current step.

When you also have routing restrictions on a step, this can reduce the number of possible approvers that the while-running condition evaluates. Workday evaluates the while-running condition in each approval level first. If the while-running condition is met, we proceed to evaluate the routing restriction.

The while-running condition checks an approval level even though you might have set a routing restriction to exclude prior approvers.

Example: An

Approval Chain

step has a while-running condition to check for a manager and a routing restriction to exclude prior approvers. A manager, Betty, approves the step in a previous approval level. In a subsequent level, Betty is also an approver. The while-running condition still evaluates this approval level even though the routing restriction is to exclude prior approvers. The step goes unassigned if there isn't anyone else in the approval level to approve besides Betty.

Only

Approval Chain

and

Consolidated Approval Chain

steps can have an exit condition.

For these steps, this condition evaluates the approver who just completed this level of the chain and if the condition is true, the step exits. Like the while-running condition, an exit condition is also working while the

Approval Chain

or

Consolidated Approval Chain

is running. The difference is that when the condition is met, the exit condition exits the step; when the while-running condition isn’t met, it skips to the next level in the chain.

Starting at the second approval level, Workday evaluates the exit condition at each level including approval levels that are skipped as a result of routing restrictions and while-running conditions that might be configured on the step.

When the exit condition is never met, the

Approval Chain

or

Consolidated Approval Chain

step exits after reaching the highest approver in the management hierarchy.