How to create a Process – Oak Digital Workplace

A Process lets you build a form or workflow on your intranet. You build it by dragging fields and content from the pencil toolbox onto the page, so you can choose exactly what information you collect.

A Process can have one step or several. You can also restrict sections to certain audiences, so different people only see the parts of the form that are relevant to them.

This guide will walk you through building a Process, choosing what happens when each step is submitted, and publishing it.

Before you start:

You need to be assigned the Process Manager permission to create or manage a Process
The people who will fill in the Process need the Process Submitter permission so they can access it and submit it

Building a new Process

Go to the Actions button > Create > Process.
Give the Process a name.
To change the background colour, select the paint pot and choose a colour from the palette.
Rename step one if you'd like to, and give the first section a name. Both fields are mandatory.

Setting up sections

Hover over a section to see its buttons on the right-hand side.

Select the + icon to add a new section above the current one. To add a section below, hover over the bottom right-hand corner of the section and select the + that appears.
Select the bin icon to delete a section. You'll be asked to confirm.
Select the three dots to open the section's options.

The section options are:

Show title: switched on by default. Switch it off to hide the section name.
Include in email: switch this off if the information in this section is too sensitive to include in the email notification.
Restrict to audience: switch this on, then select Choose audience to pick who can see this section. You can choose more than one user group.
Layout: choose a layout for the section. You can change it at any time without losing your content.

Select Close when you've made your changes.

Adding fields and content

Select the pencil icon to open the pencil toolbox. It has twelve question fields and three presentation options, such as Text, Dropdown, Rating, Image and Banner. For details of every field and its settings, see How to add questions and content to a Process.

Drag an option into a section and drop it when the blue line appears. To move a field, hover over the dots, then drag it to a new position and drop it when the blue line appears.

Ending the Process after a step

By default, What happens next? is set to Submit, which ends the Process. To choose who gets an email when the form is submitted:

Select Change next to What happens next?

Make sure Nothing, this is the end of the process is selected.
Select Click to add some new people now. The Object Picker opens. For help, see How to use the Object Picker to select areas, content and people.
To email someone based on who submitted the form, select Related people, choose one or more options and select Confirm:
- Originator: the person who started the Process
- Originator's Manager: the originator's manager as recorded in Oak
- Step Submitter: in a multi-step Process, the person who submitted the previous step
- Step Submitter's Manager: the step submitter's manager as recorded in Oak
To email someone outside your intranet, such as a supplier, select Email recipient > Add, enter a name and email address, then select Add. Repeat for more addresses, then select Confirm.
Use + to add more recipients or X to remove one, then select Close.

Adding more steps

You can add a step by selecting Add new step in the top right-hand corner, or from What happens next?:

Select Change next to What happens next?
Select Go from Step 1 to another step.
Choose a step from the list on the right. To create one, select the + next to Steps. To edit or delete a step, select its three dots.
Select Click to add some new people and choose who will complete the next step in the Object Picker. You can use Related people here too.
Select Confirm, then Close.

The left-hand side shows a summary of the next step and who will complete it. To change it, select the Next step is text.

In the list of steps, the icons explain what happens next. A red icon means something is missing, so select it to find out what. The star marks the first step. To change it, select the step's three dots > Set as first step.

Giving people a choice

Sometimes the next step depends on someone's answer. For example, an IT troubleshooting Process might send people to different steps depending on which browser they use.

Select Change next to What happens next?, then Give the user a choice.
Type over Submit with the text for your first option.
Select the pencil icon next to the option.
Choose Go to Step 1, then Select another step.
Pick an existing step on the right, or select + to add one.
On the left, select Add users who will action the step, choose who will complete it and select Confirm.
If you want to email anyone else, add them under Who else should receive an email? and select Confirm.
Select Close and check the What happens next? section.

Handing a step to a group of people

If you hand the next step to a group, everyone in the group gets an email, task and notification asking them to act.

To let the person submitting the step choose one person from the group instead, tick Submitter must choose a user to complete the next step. Only the chosen person gets the email, task and notification.

Reassigning a submission

If the person chosen for a step is away, the Process could get stuck. People who can view the Process results can reassign it to someone else in the group:

Go to the Actions button > Manage > Manage Business Processes.
Select the three dots next to the Process, then View submissions.
Select the three dots next to the submission, then Reassign submission.
Choose the new person and select Save.

Publishing your Process

Select Edit settings and check the publishing settings. See How to edit the publishing settings of a Process.
Select Publish, or Save & exit to keep it as a draft.

Considerations, tips & guidance

A Process saves automatically in the background. Your cursor turns into a spinning wheel while it saves.
Keep your user data up to date, including managers, so Related people sends emails to the right people.
Using groups instead of individual people makes your Processes easier to maintain.
Think about GDPR when deciding which sections to include in emails, especially when emailing people outside your organisation.